Hilda Baci denies claim she ditched deal with restaurant after taking ₦3m

Hilda Baci has addressed claims that she ditched a meet-and-greet deal after receiving payment.

Claims earlier surfaced that Baci charged ₦25,000 for a live cooking meet-and-greet meant to hold on June 24.

It was alleged that the chef suddenly pulled out of the Abuja deal after she had taken a payment of ₦3 million.

Vibe by Ann’s, the restaurant said to be the host of the event, threatened a lawsuit against Baci for this.

It claimed “both parties agreed” to organise the event and “concluded arrangements” before Baci pulled out.

However, Hilda Baci has distanced herself from the said event, adding that she did not ask people to pay.

Reacting via Instagram, Baci countered the restaurant’s claim and narrated the details of what transpired.

The chef confirmed that there was an arrangement for her to attend a meet-and-greet, but not a monetised one.

Baci said she pulled out of the deal after the organisers informed her of their intention to bill attendees for it.

She said she was uncomfortable with their arrangements and decided to do a refund of the restaurant’s payment.

“The first thing that I would note is that I don’t have any ₦3 million because I refunded it. A friend of mine had reached out to me and had said to me that there’s this brand that wants me to do an appearance, Baci said.

“They asked for the appearance fee and I said what it was. I was asked to share my details and I proceeded to do so.

“I’ll say, this is where the mistake was on my side. I should have sent my manager’s number but because this person was coming from my friend, I said, ‘Let me just share my details because it’s just an appearance and that’s okay’.”

Baci said she discussed with the restaurant about cooking a meal at the event but never agreed to bill the attendees.

She said the restaurant later sent her flyers to a monetised hangout and asked her to share them on her socials.

“The fact that I did the cook-a-thon for free doesn’t mean that they will do it for free. I told them I won’t charge extra for cooking because it’s for my Abuja fans.

“I told them there’s no way I’m going to post this because I can’t ask people to pay 20k or 30k to see me,” she said.

“Obviously, I wasn’t talking to them directly. I was talking to my friend. My friend forwarded our conversation to them and they responded the next day, explaining why the event had to be paid for.

“I forwarded their message to my manager and my manager said they can’t call it an evening with Hilda Baci and then ask people to pay 25k. That’s basically asking people to pay to see me.

“After this, I told them that I might have to refund them because this was off-brand for me. I feel like they owed it to the people they were selling the event to not post that flyer.

“This is because, at that point, we were in a conversation where I was telling them that I’m no longer interested.”

Hilda Baci was recently certified to have broken the world record for the longest solo cooking marathon.