Carey Priscilla: ‘How challenging my faith landed me in trouble’

Carey Priscilla is everything the Akorino faith is not. She is a model, an actress and a beauty influencer. She is audacious, rebellious and, perhaps, the quintessence of church in conflict with a disruptive world. A typical millennial. 

Born Priscilla Wangari and raised in Nairobi’s Buru Buru neighbourhood in a conservative home of Akorino and its strict norms, the “world” for Carey was always frowned upon. In adulthood, she has challenged almost every rule she was raised in.

Today, she laughs off the very notion of restraint - in dressing, in behaviour and in association.

Carey is a social butterfly who basks in the sheer opulence of her life and fame. With more than 150,000 followers online, media interviews and regular appearances on local TV shows, she’s a celebrity by Kenyan standards. It’s no mistake that her bio on Instagram reads: For all flawless glam.

Wherever she goes, she causes a stir. Even passers-by outside her shop on Koinange Street can’t resist gawking at her. But it’s easy to understand why she draws such quizzical stares. A Mukorino in six-inch designer stilettos and makeup isn’t something you see every day.

Her rebellion, she notes triumphantly, has helped to “break stereotypes” about her faith. “The majority of Kenyans see Akorino as poor people. We’re associated with backwardness and opposed to modernity.”

Aren’t they conservative? “Of course we are, but not on the scale that most people imagine. We’ve become progressive.”

She has also emboldened other young people in the faith, especially women, to defy some of its “oppressive traditions” and to become more independent-minded. “More and more women in my church are wearing makeup today. They also dress in ways that fulfil them. My sisters wear makeup to church. They also do manicure and pedicure.”

Times have changed, and truly, the ground is shifting in the Akorino faith. Pesh, her long-time friend and a fellow Mukorino, is a popular fashion model, businesswoman and trendsetter, with a huge following online.

The older generation of Akorino women, including her mother, however, has balked at these drastic developments. “My mother doesn’t wear makeup. She also dresses very modestly. But she’s been supportive of us,” says Carey.

“You can’t live in the world and fail to enjoy the pleasures that God has given to you, can you?” she asks.

When it comes to pleasure, Carey’s propensity for delightful things is as boundless as it’s acute. From swimming to skating, snorkelling in the UK and surfing in the Indian Ocean, Carey admits she’s an aficionado for “activities that charge my adrenaline.”

In one of the videos shared on her Instagram, Carey is in a swimsuit and a beach hat at an unidentified location, with American popstar Post Malone’s Wow playing in the background. It’s a curious choice of song because it glorifies overindulgence.

Here’s an excerpt of the lyrics:

"Said she tired of lil’ money, need a big boy; Pull up 20 inch blades like I'm Lil’ Troy; Now it's everybody flockin’, need a decoy; Shawty mixin’ up the vodka with the LaCroix, yeah; G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon.

“It’s just a song,” she says in defence. “If a song doesn’t promote violence, obscenity or other ills, I sing along. You can’t ignore good music.”

The businesswoman has a hankering for fashion, almost in a fanatical way. Designer clothes bedeck her wardrobe, including brands such as Dior and Victoria’s Secret. “I love simple but classy designs.”

At her makeup studio, Carey uses high-end imported brands. A medium-size consignment of such products, she says, even when on sale, costs about Sh500,000, without the shipping costs and import duty. ‘‘Makeup is about quality, which doesn’t come cheap.’’

Fine dining enthusiast

She’s also a fine dining enthusiast. But for someone leading a completely teetotal lifestyle – due to her faith but also as a matter of choice – she only eats at places that don’t sell alcohol. Yet nearly all eateries vend alcohol.

This though doesn’t stop Carey from satisfying her penchant for gourmet. She says she dines at the city’s exclusive hotels such as Radisson Blu and Rooftop at The Curve “where I can enjoy my privacy and hang out with friends and clients”. This comes at a premium.

On moderation, she says: “There are times when I’m carried away by fashion, for instance. It could be by wearing something that’s too revealing. At that point, I have to tone down. We all trip and fall, but God has the grace to forgive us.”

“Departing” from modesty, which her faith holds high, put her at cross-purposes with people close to her, including family. The U-turn also sparked anger and disruption within her church community and an equal measure of ridicule from Kenyans.

Not a fake person

She was assigned labels, from a rebel to an embarrassment and even a traitor.

But the founder of Carey Beauty is adamant that she isn’t conflicted, insisting: “I’m not a fake person. If people can’t put up with who I am, they have no business being in my life.”

She adds: “I model and live my life to the fullest. But I’m also true to my spiritual belief of purity and prayer. They’re part of my life. Akorino is also a very close-knit society. I love that sense of belonging.”

Many times though, Carey has felt like an outcast in her own community. “I’ve clashed with members who felt I was going overboard. I find it easier to associate with non-members of our faith – people who don’t judge me.”

Whether she’s a “real” Mukorino is “the most nagging question” people ask her. “I’m very grounded as a Mukorino. This is how I was raised. It’s weird that people question my faith. But I don’t blame them,” she says, noting that things have evolved.

“I can’t put on sackcloth, can I?” she asks, giggly. “If I dressed up and looked glam, how does that antagonise my faith?”

Accounting job

While denying any frostiness with her fellow congregants, Carey says she has drastically reduced interactions with them, engaging only in brief sessions of pleasantries after the church service every week.

When she quit her accounting job to set up a makeup studio, she ran into turbulence. Attempts by her family to dissuade her fell flat. Secondly, none of the professionals in industry was inclined to lend her a hand.

Even so, she stayed put. Three years on, Carey Beauty has grown in leaps and bounds, with top personalities in the country among her clients.

If entrepreneurship demands fierceness, Carey has a penchant for outdoing herself. Starting this year, her beauty school – where she trains makeup artists – opened its doors to the public.

“I’m not after a big number. I want to offer value and to mentor those who join my school.”

Today, a growing number of professional women are conscious about fitness and go to the gym as much as their male counterparts. Carey is one of them. She goes to the gym in her neighbourhood. To ward off unnecessary attention, she disguises her looks whenever she goes to work out. “I dress up like other women and cover my hair in a scarf.”

Does Carey think the church has to change with the times? She declares, nearly as comically as emphatically, that this transformation is long overdue.

“Having stringent rules and excommunicating members for erring doesn’t make us better Christians. It only enslaves people.”

She goes on to say that Christianity is about one’s relationship with God, and wonders: “Does wearing makeup make me a lesser Christian? Are we serving the church or God?”

On dealing with stigma and personal attacks online, Carey says she’s now used to intolerance. “I don’t take offence anymore. Sometimes I take time to educate people about my faith and the choices I’ve made.” But she insists she isn’t obligated to justify all her actions.

As a young woman in her late 20s, Carey faces the routine challenges of youth. In the prime of her youth, none of these temptations is quite as slippery as desires of the flesh.

“I must preserve my purity until marriage. I hope to get the right man to start a family with,” she says solemnly, noting that dating is strictly prohibited in her church. “Men and women are only allowed to court after notifying church elders, after which wedding preparations take off.”

Has she found a suitor yet? “I’m still searching.” Must he be from her faith? “No. I’m ready to settle down with any God-fearing man.” Including a non-believer, “for as long as he has a personal relationship with God”.

In her view, the Akorino faith has loosened up in recent years, with young men and women now allowed to wed from outside the faith, a practice that was dreaded 15 years ago.

Potential suitors

For a public figure, there has been interest from men from all walks of life, but hardly any from the Akorino religion, she reveals, almost regrettably. “Many of those who propose to me are jokers, mostly pagan men. Some approach me as potential business partners, but as a professional, I always dismiss them.”

She’s worried though that the Akorino men are not keen on proposing to her. “I think they’re intimidated.”

Over the decades, multiple sub-sects of the Akorino have arisen, owing to ideological differences. Whereas some have held on to conservative ways, other splinter groups are more progressive, while others are only a tinge of the original faith.

Carey explains: “People want to worship in a way that they’re comfortable with. We can’t be blind to the fact that we’re living in the world.”

Expecting Christians to avoid “earthly things” is to force them to walk on eggshells, she says. “If I could, I wouldn’t be on social media. But I have a business to run and a life to live. We need these resources to make our life better.”

She describes hers as a lonely journey that has seen her cut many friends out of her life for new alliances. She vows to remain relentless.

“We haven’t gone to heaven yet, we’re still on earth. Besides, we’re human beings.”

Her anxieties as a youth in Kenya? Failure, she says. “I’m determined to grow my business so that I can continue to support myself and my dependants, including my employees and trainees.”

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