TikTok star Habeeb Hamzat, widely known as Peller, has revealed that he was sexually abused by his football coach during his teenage years a traumatic experience that derailed his dreams of a professional football career and a potential World Cup appearance.
Peller made the disclosure on the latest episode of The Honest Bunch Podcast, published Monday on YouTube. I’m supposed to be at the World Cup currently, he said, reflecting on how the abuse changed the course of his life.
He recounted that he was around 14 or 15 when the incidents occurred. My coach was gay. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, he said, describing how the coach would gather the team at an unfinished building before training sessions.
Latecomers, Peller recalled, were fined—a penalty he often couldn’t afford to pay. “He’d tell the others to go ahead and say, ‘Habeeb, wait. You came late,’” Peller recounted. The coach would then ask him to come closer and inappropriately touch him.
On one occasion, Peller said the coach lured him to a one-room apartment in Agric, Ikorodu, under the pretense of running an errand. “When I got there, he’d already undressed. He asked me to come to the bed. I just wanted to deliver something to him,” Peller said, recalling his confusion and discomfort.
The coach attempted to placate him by promising more playing time, but Peller escaped the situation by asking to use the restroom and running away. He never returned, effectively ending his football aspirations.
That was when I became wise and started focusing on my livestreaming, he said, referring to his eventual shift to social media, where he initially struggled to attract viewers before finding success.
Later, Peller learned from an acquaintance in Lekki that the coach had a history of similar misconduct and had been chased out of another community for his actions.
This deeply personal revelation underscores the long-lasting impact of abuse and the resilience required to rebuild one’s life after such trauma.
