Ian Nene, popularly known as Almasi isa Kenyan actor who was highly featured on Citizen TV drama series, Machachari.
The show followed lives of children living in the ghetto and those from wealthy families who formed an unlikely friendship.
Machachari would later be cancelled as the cast had outgrown their roles.
Despite his early departure from the show, Ian is among cast members who have remained in the limelight because if his fashion choice, religion and sexuality which has been called into question.
Here is what WoK has managed to gather about the above subject.
Following his exit from Machachari, Ian maintained a low-key profile until when he moved to the United Kingdom to further his studies.
He would resurface rocking weird outfits and pulled stunts that eventually saw him linked to the LGBTQ community.
Despite initially denying claims that he was gay, Ian went ahead to introduce a man he identified as his boyfriend in 2021.
Ian had earlier dismissed claims if being gay, arguing that he was just a young man in a quest to discover himself.
This was also around the same time he switched his religion from Christianity to Hinduism.
In an interview with YouTube Shivani Pau, Ian disclosed that he changed his religion after his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
He explained that even though he was inquisitive about religion, he would not get satisfactory answers to some questions that he would ask.
Ian also spoke of a friend who introduced him to Hinduism.
“Randomly, he brings me a book while we are just chilling and getting high. He told me he was a monk but I didn’t understand, he told me if I read the book, I will get some realizations
“He gave me the book and a bag of a guitar and I looked at the back of the bag of the guitar and I saw a picture of one of our founders, I didn’t understand it then,” he said.
It was during his visit to Kenya when his mother told him that she had been diagnosed with stage four cancer.
Ian noted that he sunk into depression and turned to smoking marijuana, hoping to feel better.
“I started getting higher even more, I asked God why He had allowed my mum to suffer, ‘If you truly exist, why do you allow bad things to happen to good people
“My mum here serves everyone and even people outside the community she helps so many people yet she is the one getting cancer,” Almasi said.
It was around this time when Ian switched his allegiance to Hinduism.
“I was invited to a temple and I started learning and they were answering all my questions deeply and scientifically and how God is manoeuvring this world and a lot of technical questions
“I became a vegetarian immediately and when I went back to the UK, I met monks and they took me to a temple, where I spent most of the times, especially during holidays, and dedicated even more cohesive time to it after am done with school,” he said.
Having been raised in a Catholic home, Ian noted that his family and people around him disapproved the move.
“I remember my mom’s face when I was coming from the temple and she had told me not to go to the temple again
“…she looked at me and was like ‘oh my God really these guys have really brainwashed you, they’re changing my son,” he said.
In July 2022, Almasi shared an update on his social media platforms indicating that he had joined the Hari Krishna movement.
The formal joining came after over a year after he was made a Hindu teacher.
