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Comedian Timothy
Njugush Kimani has opened up about his troubled childhood upbringing. Despite his current fame and success in entertainment circles, Njugush's childhood was marked by significant struggles.
When he was born 33 years ago, Njugush didn't have a speech.
"I was born with a condition called ankyloglossia. An unusual occurrence where the tip of the tongue is tied to the floor of the mouth by the frenulum... This condition meant many things then. That there is a possibility of me never being able to develop a speech. It also meant that due to the lack of awareness about the condition then, I risked missing opportunities that come with the privilege of a light tongue," Njugush reveals in his Memoir
Whispers from My Childhood: Through Thick and Thin.
His mother first noticed something was amiss about a month after his birth, observing that he did not cry like other infants. Despite being her firstborn, she instinctively knew something was wrong. It took doctors three weeks of observations and tests at Meru County General Hospital to confirm the condition, that indeed he was tongue-tied. A procedure was eventually performed to correct it.
"Finally on the third week of trying, a procedure was performed at Meru General Hospital 'peeling' back the frenulum," Njugush says.
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Njugush makes Sh6 Million from his latest show
This was but one of the many things that troubled Njugush while growing up which also included emotional instability which he credits to having pushed him to attempt suicide. Njugush candidly shares that he once attempted to take his own life in April 2005. He had been battling loneliness when his family relocated to Joska, in Machakos county leaving him behind in the village where he stayed with his aunt as he completed school.
“I must admit I was struggling to fit in both places. Back in the village, I felt lonely and out of place, and then at our new home it was increasingly difficult to catch up with a new neighborhood that was even more different each time I traveled for the holidays...“Admittedly to this day, I don’t know what I wanted to achieve with this (attempting suicide). Maybe I was a child confused by the intrigues of so much happening a little too fast. Or perhaps that’s how melancholy presents itself. I don’t know,” he poses.”
Njugush avers in his book.
He also recounts battling bedwetting during his childhood, a struggle his mother addressed with a unique reward system, giving sweets to the child who did not wet the bed.
“It was between my brother and me. To make sure we got the sweet, you had to make sure you didn’t wet the bed. We would get sweets for not wetting the bed,” he said.
Despite these difficulties, Njugush has risen to become a celebrated comedian in Kenya minting millions from ambassidorial and brand deals. His success is so remarkable that even President William Ruto once joked that Njugush and fellow comedian Butita earn more than he does.
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