Ugandan singer Maro, real name Ronald Magada, has opened up about one of the most difficult periods of his life, revealing that a marriage rumor surrounding his wife contributed to a period of depression.
Maro had relocated to Germany with his longtime partner, Iris, with whom he had been in a relationship for more than a decade.
According to Maro, about six months after his relocation, several blogs published claims that Iris had married him because she had more money than he did.
The singer said the narrative affected him deeply and became one of the darkest chapters of his life.
Speaking during an interview with Galaxy FM, Maro recalled trying to maintain his privacy while continuing to participate in interviews with friends and media personalities back home.
Because he was in Germany and often home alone with his daughter, Maro said conducting interviews through Skype created another problem: his child would sometimes appear on camera.
He said he had agreed with his interviewers that his daughter’s face would be blurred, but that did not always happen.
“I kept my child and my struggles as a man away from the public,” Maro said.
He explained that his daughter would interrupt interviews because he could not simply lock her out of the room.
“She kept running into the camera and checking on me and they never blurred her face,” he said.
According to Maro, images of his daughter appearing during the interviews further fueled the speculation surrounding his marriage.
“Remember the stories on the streets that my wife had married me and when they saw me with my child, it made things worse. My child’s face was all over. This pushed the narrative further,” he said.
Maro said he responded to the difficult period by throwing himself into music, eventually recording four albums.
“I made four albums during that time thinking I was fighting depression but later I cooled down,” he said.
The singer said he eventually reflected on why he had started making music in the first place and began to regain perspective.
“I remembered why I started and that no one sent me to do what I was doing,” he said.
Maro also recalled stepping away from the public eye for about six months after the rumor gained widespread attention.
He said calls from people asking when he would return to music eventually helped restore his confidence.
“The whole of Uganda was on my side because when the rumor went viral, I stepped back for like 6 months and then they started calling me asking when I would get back,” Maro said.
He added that the support reminded him that he still had an audience and helped lift his spirits.
“That lifted me up and reminded me that I was still a star,” he said.
Maro’s account offers a look at how public speculation and unwanted exposure can affect artists away from the stage, particularly when private family matters become part of the entertainment news cycle.