For the first time since she called time on the midmorning show on Capital FM, Flavia Tumusiime has revealed why she took the decision to leave the show after 15 years.
Flavia left the AM to PM Show in August of last year after ruling the airwaves for 15 years.
She had joined Capital at the age of 17.
When she announced she was quitting the show, questions began to linger as to what the reasons could have been. Especially that over a decade later, it still felt she was in her prime.
In a country where most celebrities have been entangled in a scandal or two, she is credited for steering clear of controversy despite having become a celebrity at a very fragile age.
Flavia says she had got to a point where the daily show and the whole routine was no longer challenging to her. She was too comfortable.
“I grew up on that show. It was time to leave that show. I was doing a great show, it was doing well. I decided to leave when the handclaps were still loud,” Flavia who is now 33 said in her latest vlog on her YouTube channel.
“I think I wanted something different. Not just good, but great. I wanted my life to stop being the same kind of thing,” the mother of three added.
She admits the stardom that came with working with a reputable station like Capital for 15 years earned her financial stability, happiness, success and recognition, but adds “there was a level of life that I wanted to get to and I wasn’t seeing it happen”
“I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. And there’s nothing that spoke comfort like that show. I would wake up and I didn’t even prep for the show, because I knew what to say I knew what to do. And that’s comfort.”
She said that she had got to a level where she wasn’t delivering anything new on the show.
It took her three months to make that final decision to leave the AM to PM Show.
The previous year, Flavia had quit NTV Uganda where she had anchored prime time news for seven years. Similarly, she cited “choosing to challenge herself again” as the reason behind the decision.
Currently, she hosts Desert Island Discs, the weekly interview-style show that profiles key personalities. This after Simon Kasyate, who was previously hosting left the show.
The actress, vlogger and emcee has also been sharing the journey to birthing her twins, which journey began shortly after she quit the radio show.
RELATED: Flavia Tumusiime is very disturbed that her son keeps calling her ‘daddy’
She reflected on how tough her second pregnancy was. Including the fact that she was forced to take a 6-month bed rest.
Her movements had been restricted to enable her recover from a surgery she underwent.
It followed a laparoscopy – a surgical procedure that allows a surgeon to access the inside of the abdomen (tummy) and pelvis without having to make large incisions in the skin – that she underwent.
Towards the end of 2021, Flavia revealed that she had been diagnosed with a condition called endometriosis. And the surgery was an intervention to manage it.
“My symptoms are into Stage 2. If you are experiencing very painful periods to the point when you can’t walk, you could have it. You need to get checked for endometriosis,” she shared on her Instagram at the time, adding that; “I found out I had it two years ago when I gave birth and I had an emergency c-section. I was induced coz I had hard labor. It’s been an up-and-down journey.”
She started having painful periods when she was young.
Endometriosis is a disorder in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside the uterus. Women with Stage 4 Endometriosis most likely are infertile, with almost no chance to have a baby.
READ MORE: Flavia Tumusiime expecting her second child. But not without anxiety over a painful disorder
In her latest vlog, Flavia described how during that period, she was so incapacitated to the extent that she couldn’t even do the little things. Things as little as taking a selfie. “It was just bad”.
She also recalls many times when she would wake up and cry.
“I wasn’t crying because I was in an unhappy situation. I was crying because there was a comfort I was used to. A day-to-day that I was used to. And I was failing to come out of that season into this new season.”
Every dark cloud has a silver lining. For her, this difficult phase was also a good time to strengthen her bond with her 3-year-old son Liam, and her husband Andrew Kabuura.
“When I was home, I decided to pour more into Liam. And I realized that there was barely a relationship with him. The time together made us friends,” she said.
Previously, she has revealed that her daily radio show deprived her of time to bond with her son. This challenge had left her with only a small period – while she put together breakfast and supper – to catch up with Liam.
As another way to maneuver this problem, she had started monthly mom-son dates.
Her second pregnancy, she has said, also made her appreciate her marriage a lot more and she started to invest a lot of time and attention to it. This made her and her husband “better friends”.
She used the break to concretize the base – her immediate family – that holds her.
“I realized very early that when those people are happy, I am happy. I’m happy and content to run around and do everything. But if everything else was good and this base wasn’t happy, I wasn’t thriving.”
“Now I’m back, happier, more calmer and more clear on my direction. It’s a very beautiful life.”
In May, Andrew revealed that Flavia had given birth to twins – Ethan Kato Kabuura and Enzo Kakuru Kabuura.
