The rumors did not start this year. Back in February 2025, an anonymous blog published a coded item describing a widowed pastor who had allegedly found love with a Nollywood actress widely recognized for her fitness lifestyle. Readers immediately decoded the post as referring to Ighodalo and Henshaw, and the speculation spread rapidly across Nigerian Twitter, WhatsApp groups, and entertainment blogs before either party had said a word publicly.
Kate Henshaw, 55, has been in the Nigerian film industry for more than three decades. A graduate of the University of Calabar, she won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 2007 and remains one of the most recognizable faces in Nollywood. She was previously married to British businessman Roderick James Nuttal in 1999. That marriage produced one daughter and ended in divorce in 2011.
The connection between Henshaw and Pastor Ituah traces back to 2020. When critics attacked the pastor for preaching and officiating a funeral on the same day his wife Ibidunni died, Henshaw defended him publicly, saying no one can dictate to another person how to mourn.
Ibidunni Ighodalo died in Port Harcourt on a Sunday morning. Pastor Ituah received the news at around 2:00 a.m. and still proceeded to lead his congregation in a church service, then officiated a funeral he had already committed to, before returning home to his children.
Six days after her death, on June 20, 2020, Ibidunni was buried at the Vaults and Gardens cemetery in Lagos. The service was restricted to family and close associates because of COVID-19 protocols and was streamed online. Pastor Ituah chose a lilac metallic casket, her favorite color.
Years after the burial, the pastor still wears his wedding band. He has not publicly addressed grief or remarriage in any formal statement and has continued leading Trinity House Church in Lagos without interruption.
Suspicion of a romance between him and Henshaw intensified when a video circulated showing Henshaw dancing while the pastor watched her with what observers described as an admiring expression. Social media read heavily into the footage.
July 19 became the flashpoint. Henshaw held her 55th birthday Thanksgiving service at Trinity House. While dancing during the celebration, she turned toward Pastor Ituah, blew him a kiss, and said aloud, “I love you.” The clip spread rapidly across platforms, accumulating hundreds of thousands of views within a single day.
Then came the photograph. Henshaw posted an image of herself on Instagram wearing a white wedding dress. The assumption online was immediate: she had married Pastor Ituah. AI-generated images and videos of a supposed wedding ceremony followed within hours.
The wedding dress, however, was a costume. The picture was from a movie role Henshaw had recently played. No ceremony took place. No marriage was registered. The images circulating online were fabricated.
Pastor Ituah had already addressed the speculation before the dress photograph appeared. He denied any wedding and said, with some humor, that whoever was profiting from spreading the rumor should pay tithes on the income. He added that he takes life one day at a time and does not know what the future holds.
Henshaw has not issued a separate formal statement on the matter. Neither she nor the pastor has confirmed any romantic relationship. What is documented is a public friendship that began with her defense of him in one of the most painful periods of his life.
The pattern of the rumor, a blog post, a video, a birthday moment, a movie costume, and then AI-fabricated imagery shows how quickly unverified speculation about public figures moves through Nigerian digital spaces. Each stage attracted fresh coverage from entertainment outlets, demonstrating that the story’s momentum depended less on evidence than on audience appetite. Pastor Ituah Ighodalo and Kate Henshaw remain, by their own accounts, unmarried.
