It was alleged that Ruggedman had an affair with 9ice’s wife at the time, Toni Payne.

Nigerian artiste, Ruggedman has opened up about how singer, 9ice’s song ‘Once Bitten Twice Shy,’ and the infidelity rumours that followed affected his life.

Speaking with media personality Chude Jideonwo, Ruggedman recalled how his name was tarnished after 9ice’s song was released. According to him, the public assumed that the line was about him even though his name was never mentioned in the track.

He began: “It was when the song came out, ‘Once Beaten Twice Shy’ in that song, he sang, ‘I saw my girl giving my friend nodding; she was showing him her tattoos; you didn’t have to treat me that way…’, something like that. So I sent someone to buy that song because they wrote that it was in that song that he said it. I played the song and was waiting to hear ‘Ruggedman did something,’ but I didn’t hear anything. So I’m like, how did this link?”

Going on, he narrated his phone conversation with 9ice after the song came out, stating that he asked the singer to provide clarification about the line that was being misunderstood.

According to Ruggedman, who recorded the phone conversation, 9ice refused to release a statement to let the public know that it was about someone else and not him. Then after a week of waiting, Ruggedman publicised the call to clear his name, but the damage was done.

“Many people felt like I was just defending myself and you know how Nigerians are. Once it comes to infidelity people are holier than thou. I know that I lost a lot, do you know how it feels to talk walk into a place and you feel like everybody is just looking at you, I’m sure I just walked into a place and a guy just held his wife like ‘dear come close’. It wasn’t funny at the time and it was a really difficult period,” he said.

At the time, it was speculated that Ruggedman had an affair with 9ice’s then-wife Toni Payne, whom he introduced to him. Going further he described how betrayed he felt by his former friend 9ice.

He concluded, “What really hurt me was that when he released the album tradition it wasn’t really moving until people started buying the album just to hear the part of the song where 9ice said ‘Ruggedman and his wife’ and it wasn’t there. It really hurt because it felt like he was throwing me and his wife under the bus just so that he could well some CDs..to me that was betrayed”