For years, the rumours followed her every time she boarded a flight.
Diana Nalubega — one of Uganda’s most recognisable female voices — has been carrying a cloud over her name that had nothing to do with her music. Every trip to Turkey came loaded with whispers. Every return to Kampala added fuel to speculation that had taken on a life entirely its own.
She has stayed quiet about it. Until now.
And what she revealed when she finally spoke is not the story anyone was expecting — because it comes with a business, a boutique, a music deal, and a clarity about her own identity that makes the years of rumour look exactly as hollow as she says they always were.
Diana Nalubega addressed the Turkey rumors directly, and she did not soften the dismissal.
“I don’t think that’s true. There are critics who claim that artists practice prostitution, but I don’t. I know myself.”
Her explanation for the frequent trips is straightforward: she owns a boutique in Kabalagala, Kampala, and Turkey has long been a sourcing destination for affordable, quality clothing stock. She was travelling for inventory. She was travelling for business. She was doing what thousands of Ugandan entrepreneurs do — building something, quietly, while their public profile attracted a very different kind of attention.
“My trips to Turkey were strictly business-oriented. I used to travel there to buy clothes for my boutique in Kabalagala, Kampala.”
She has since scaled back the travel. Not because the rumours won — but because the logistics have evolved. She now has someone who handles the sourcing on her behalf, which means she only makes the trip when it is genuinely necessary.
She also disclosed that the frequent travel was taking a personal toll. The anxiety that came with constant movement eventually became reason enough to restructure how the business operated.
That detail matters. It reframes the story from a woman hiding something to a woman who built a parallel career, managed it under public scrutiny, and eventually found a more sustainable way to run it.
But that’s not even the most surprising part of this interview.
Diana Nalubega broke through with Kabiite — a song that connected with Ugandan audiences and established her as a name worth watching in the local music scene. Her voice carries a warmth that her fans have remained loyal to even through the quieter stretches of her career.
The Turkey rumours are not new. They have circulated long enough to have become a fixture in how some corners of Uganda’s entertainment commentary discuss her — the kind of persistent allegation that attaches itself to a woman’s name and travels further than any press release ever could.
What is less discussed is the reality that many Ugandan artists, particularly women, maintain parallel income streams outside of music. The entertainment industry does not guarantee financial stability, and entrepreneurship — including retail businesses like boutiques — is a common and entirely legitimate way artists sustain themselves between projects.
Nalubega’s boutique in Kabalagala is not a footnote. For her, it appears to have been a primary business operation running alongside her music career for years.
The moment Nalubega said “I know myself” — direct, undecorated, final — it was the line that clipped and travelled.
Fans immediately noticed the confidence in how she delivered the dismissal. There was no lengthy explanation. No tearful defence. Just a woman stating her reality and trusting that her record would speak for itself.
The internet had thoughts, and they were not holding back.
Many rallied behind her swiftly, pointing to the boutique revelation as the kind of practical, grounded detail that rumours never survive contact with. Others pointed out that the Turkey-to-prostitution pipeline is a narrative that has been applied to multiple Ugandan female artists — and questioned why the same scrutiny is rarely directed at male artists who travel just as frequently.
The film deal revelation added an entirely different energy to the comment sections.
Some fans are treating the Kisumuluzo film licensing news as the real headline buried inside this story — with several pointing out that having a song acquired for an international film or documentary project is a significant achievement that deserves its own conversation.
Others are speculating about which production picked up the track and what kind of project it will appear in. Nalubega confirmed the deal is finalised and payment has been received, but details about the specific film or documentary have not yet been made public. It is unclear when the project will be released, though she indicated it is coming soon.
A number of voices in the comments are also pushing back on the broader culture of attaching reputational allegations to female artists who travel for business — with the consensus being that Nalubega’s situation is unlikely to be unique.
There is something quietly significant about a woman who spent years absorbing a rumour about her character — and responded not with outrage but with a business ledger.
She built a boutique. She sourced her own stock. She managed the anxiety of constant travel until she found a better system. And while all of that was happening, her music was still working — landing in the hands of international filmmakers who valued it enough to pay for it.
Diana Nalubega did not wait for the rumours to stop before she kept building. That might be the most important detail in this entire story.
Here is the sentence that reframes everything: while Uganda was busy speculating about what Diana Nalubega was doing in Turkey, Diana Nalubega was in Turkey buying clothes for her shop, building a business, and earning a living. The rumour was loud. The boutique was real. And somewhere in an editing suite, her voice is about to play in a film that the people who doubted her will probably never hear about.
Diana Nalubega said she knows herself — and honestly, the boutique receipts and the film deal suggest she always did. The question is whether Uganda’s entertainment commentary is ready to update the story it told about her.
Drop a comment — do you think female artists in Uganda are unfairly targeted by rumours like these, and does Diana’s explanation change how you see the situation?