Oscar winning actress Lupita Nyong’o’s name is not only hard for Americans to pronounce but to spell as well.
Jimmy Kimmel’s weeknights show on abc channel took to the streets to find out if anyone could correctly spell the actress’ name.
The challenge had a monetary price to it, which was doubled every time people failed in the spelling competition.
Starting from $5 the Americans on the streets struggled with Lupita’s surname some saying they could not even attempt to spell her first name which is of Mexican origin.
This despite the fact that Lupita is on the cover of Vogue magazine, October edition.
The magazine documented the actress’ life in her village home in Kisumu County in a YouTube video as she learnt how to make Kenya’s staple meal, ugali.
QUEEN OF KATWE
The Wednesday night Spellebrity segment on Jimmy Kimmel’s show had to double the price for spelling Lupita’s name every time someone failed.
This increased the price from $5 (Sh500) to a whopping $1,280 (Sh128,000) which was ultimately won by a woman of Nigerian descent.
During the competition only two women spelled Lupita’s surname correctly, both of African descent, but one failed to include the apostrophe which the show host said was key as it is placed towards the end unlike Irish names whose apostrophe is at the start of the name.
Lupita appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show to promote her latest Movie Queen of Katwe which premiers on Friday.
During her interview she discussed her experience shooting the movie with a first time young actress as her daughter whose plays Phiona Mutesi, the chess guru.
She also discussed her starstruck moments when she met Beyonce and Jay Z as well as being mentioned on the American rapper’s We Made It song.
