NAIROBI, Kenya – Media personality Adelle Onyango has opened up about how her divorce became a turning point that reshaped her understanding of love, identity, and self-worth.
In a long write-up, she describes the end of her marriage not as a collapse, but as an unexpected opening—one that forced her into a deeper, more intentional relationship with herself.
“I’ve found that in many beautiful ways divorce can be a blessing. One gift it gave me, was it forced me to choose me.”
From that moment, she says, began a process of reconstruction—peeling back years of conditioning, expectation, and emotional survival to rediscover who she truly was.
“This meant I had to spend time watching me, talking to me, listening, touching me, remembering who I am and shedding who I’m not, simultaneously.”
That journey, she explains, revealed how much of her earlier life—including her relationships—had been shaped by the desire to be chosen rather than to choose.
“In many small ways and many big ways, many women are socialized to aspire to be chosen. By a man, any man.”
She admits that this mindset once influenced her own romantic decisions, even shaping what she believed attraction and love were supposed to look like.
“What was my type? Whoever was choosing me.”
Over time, Adele Onyango says, she found herself adapting to relationships that began with validation from others rather than authentic connection.
“They would choose me and then I would train myself to like them, to be attracted to them and eventually, to love them.”
Looking further back, the podcast host traces this pattern to her teenage years, recalling how early social expectations around relationships shaped her understanding of love.
“Everyone was pairing up… The female students were waiting to be chosen.”
What began as a youthful encounter eventually turned into a long-term relationship, reinforcing what she now sees as a deeply ingrained narrative.
“I said I’d be his date, if he got me a bouquet of black roses… where was a high school student going to get black roses?”
But, she recalls, the gesture came through in an unexpected way.
“The next week, there he was walking towards me, a bunch of black roses in hand… We dated for 5 or 6 years. I was chosen.”
Today, however, Adelle says that version of love has been completely rewritten. Her reflections now center on self-liberation and emotional independence as ongoing practices rather than milestones.
“In this process I had to kill the version of me, I had created to navigate patriarchy because to choose me, I had to first, figure out who the f*** I was.”
“My liberation is both birthed and fuelled by my ability to choose me. Always… Freedom; the constant choosing of self.”
She also challenges what she describes as a long-standing societal script that equates a woman’s worth with being selected in romantic relationships.
“What a shame that from a young age it is celebrated when we ignore our one true love and morph, pretend & perform just to lure a man, any man.”
Now, she says, her understanding of love has shifted inward—no longer defined by external validation, but anchored in self-recognition.
“And in this dance, one truth still rings true: I am my one true love.”
Previously married to Kenyan rally driver and navigator Falgun Bhojak, Adelle tied the knot on July 28, 2017 in a private ceremony.
She confirmed in September 2025 that the marriage ended in divorce, citing irreconcilable differences tied to traditional expectations around name change, motherhood, and symbolic marital practices such as wearing a wedding ring.
