Streamer Peller has spent the week trending for reasons he probably didn’t plan, after explaining on camera why comedian Shank Comics won’t be standing with him on August 1.
Peller real name Hamzat Habeeb Adelaja marries fellow creator Jarvis at a white wedding next month, having already completed traditional rites in Benin City, Edo State.
The bit that did the damage
Shank’s reason for declining was mundane: he won’t be in Nigeria. That’s not what people latched onto.
It was why Peller approached him at all. In the video, he said he reached out because some of his groomsmen couldn’t afford the Aso Ebi and some of them, in his words, are ugly. Said plainly, on camera, about men he’d personally chosen to stand beside him at his wedding.
The Aso Ebi context nobody should skip
The couple’s premium Aso Ebi runs from N350,000 for four yards up to N1 million for twelve. That detail reframes the whole thing. “Can’t afford the Aso Ebi” isn’t a comment on his friends’ finances it’s a comment on his own pricing. He set a bar most working Nigerians couldn’t clear, then held it against the people who couldn’t clear it.
The response was one-directional
There was no split camp on this one. Commenters called it a straight insult, several pointing out that the humiliation extends past the groomsmen to their partners, who now know exactly where they rank. Others predicted the obvious outcome that nobody will want the role by August.
One of the sharper responses noted Peller’s age: his peers are young men who mostly still live at home, and if he wants groomsmen at that price point, the honest move is to pay for their clothes himself.
Why it keeps happening
This isn’t a one-off slip. Peller had already been publicly needling the same groomsmen days earlier over Aso Ebi purchases, and Jarvis has drawn her own heat for telling guests to buy Aso Ebi for entry, bring appliances as gifts, and spray dollars or big naira notes.
The pattern is the point. Peller’s whole career runs on unfiltered talk, and unfiltered talk is a good business model right up until it’s aimed at the people who are supposed to show up for you. A wedding is the one event where the audience isn’t an audience it’s the guest list.
