“Acting couldn’t feed me” – Ghanaian actress Kyeiwaa recounts the moment that pushed her abroad

According to a Post by Ghanaweb on Tuesday, Nov 10, 2026, Veteran Ghanaian actress Rose Mensah, widely known as Kyeiwaa, has opened up about the financial pressures that pushed her to leave the country, saying her acting career simply did not pay enough to live on.

In a social media post, she said that even with a familiar face on television and several films in circulation, she struggled to meet her basic needs. The situation, she explained, left her afraid of sinking into depression if she did not find another source of income.

She said she was unwilling to sit idle and was prepared to take any job available. “I don’t like being stranded,” she said, adding that she would do whatever it took to work.

Kyeiwaa pointed to one episode that forced her to confront her circumstances. While her movies were still being shown, she boarded a trotro one day and was recognised by fellow passengers. They were surprised to see an actress squeezing for a seat on public transport, as though her profession exempted her from it. She said she went home that day deeply saddened.

That experience, she said, planted the idea of travelling abroad in search of better prospects. She told herself she would take on even the hardest work, including carrying salt, if it meant she could survive.

Her decision later drew public ridicule after videos and reports emerged of her working in the United States, including carrying salt and washing chicken coops. Kyeiwaa said critics fixated on her status as an actress and ignored the fact that the work paid her at the end of each week. She initially ignored the comments, she said, but chose to speak so people would understand her reasons.

Had she been earning enough in Ghana, she argued, she would never have taken those jobs abroad. She stressed that she is not the only person facing hardship and that she was simply trying to help herself.

The actress appealed to the public to stop looking down on people who take up different kinds of work, whatever their profession or social standing. She questioned why anyone would mock a person for working hard to make a living in a foreign land rather than respect the effort. Fame, she maintained, does not automatically mean financial security, and she urged Ghanaians to show understanding and support to those in difficulty.

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