Nigerian singer Simisola Bolatito Kosoko, popularly known as Simi, has responded to the backlash following the resurfacing of her old tweets from over a decade.

The controversy began after Simi made a strong statement calling for rapists to be “burnt and castrated” amid the ongoing sexual assault case involving TikToker Mirabel, who later retracted her claims.

Her comments generated mixed reactions online, prompting social media users to dig through Simi’s personal feed and uncover tweets from 2012.

In some of the old posts, Simi wrote about a four-year-old having a crush on her and “acting like he wana loc lip,” and in another, she joked about the child “trying to put hand inside my shet (sic)”.

Reacting to this, Simi took to her X page to clarify the tweets.

She said, “I haven’t been on Twitter today, but someone brought a few of my old tweets to my attention, and I can’t not address it. 14 years ago, I was 23, so I was definitely not a child. I’m not here to make excuses because I don’t have anything to make excuses for. What I can’t let anyone do is twist my story to fit false narratives.”

She further explained, “In 2012, I lived and helped out at my mom’s daycare while hustling my music. I tweeted everything that happened in my life, as we all did at the time. Kids can be mischievous. If a child did something I found funny, I tweeted about it. Kids are cute and lovable. I want to hug, kiss, and cuddle them. I tweet about it. Nothing I tweeted was from perversion.”

Simi added, “I was not famous then, so maybe if I was, I would have understood that anything is open to interpretation, including being used falsely by a faceless mob. I’ve never been depraved in my life. You can retweet all the tweets in the world about me loudly crushing on people I admired or being a cheeky young woman. I wasn’t trying to hide it, because I have nothing to hide.”

She also noted that some of her old tweets have been deleted for the sake of her family, but reaffirmed her stance against sexual violence

“I have always spoken against rape and sexual assault, even before you knew I existed. It’s not a costume I’m wearing, it’s who I am. I’ve never claimed to be perfect. I’ve never claimed to know everything. I said stop raping women. I stand by it.”