Former Queen Mercy Atang has explained why she wore a dress made from 500 loaves of bread to the 12th edition of the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards, saying the outfit was partly created to promote her business.

The reality TV star, whose unusual outfit became one of the most talked-about moments from the event, revealed in a recent BBC interview that the dress was designed by Tianah Empire and took weeks to complete.

“First of all, I was not the one who made the dress. Tianah Empire, the king of fashion, made it. It is just for me to get the clothes ready to put on,” she said.

“She asked me first to come and fit myself with the dress to look for places that need adjustments. It took weeks to get the dress ready.”

Queen also opened up about the physical pain she endured while wearing the outfit, describing the dress as extremely heavy.

“But for me, the weight of the dress almost broke my waist. If you check my back. If you check my back, I have a serious wound there. Because that bread was very heavy. I literally cried while wearing that dress. I first said I needed to catch my breath.”

“The first few seconds after wearing the dress, I had to take it off and cried a lot. Then later, I told them I was ready to wear it again.”

She added that she insisted on attending the event physically despite arriving after the red carpet closed because she did not want people to think the viral photos were AI-generated.

“I did not expect my dress to go viral like this. I expected people would have mixed feelings about it. But I noticed that major news outlets reported it.”