South African media personality, Bonang Matheba has taken legal action against YouTuber, Rea Gobane over allegations she introduced her former lover, popular rapper AKA to cocaine.
Gobane made the accusations on a podcast centering on AKA’s late fiancee, Anele ‘Nellie’ Tembe on his YouTube channel, Everything SA Music.
Nellie fell to her death from the 10th floor of Cape Town, Pepperclub hotel over a month ago
At her funeral, her father Moses Tembe cautioned against drug abuse, leading to wide insinuations that Nellie used drugs.
“Scoop told us that AKA is on cocaine and Bonang is the one that got him into cocaine, we know that AKA is on to hard drugs,” Gobane said referring to a conversation with actor, Siyabonga ‘Scoop’ Ngwekazi.
In a letter from her legal team, Thompson Wilks, Bonang demanded an apology, suing Gobane R500 000 to be paid within 10 days for the utterances he made against her.
“On Sunday 9 May 2021, you falsely and unlawfully accused Bonang Matheba in a widely published video clip of, inter alia, having introduced AKA (Kiernan Jarryd Forbes) to cocaine.
“In the context of what was being discussed in the video clip this defamatory allegation was exacerbated by the shocking insinuation that the death of AKA’s girlfriend, Anele ‘Nellie’ Tembe, was due to AKA’s alleged use of cocaine.
“The allegations were defamatory, hurtful, and were deliberately intended to humiliate my client and undermine her reputation. The allegations are also, to your knowledge false” read part of the letter.
The letter added that Gobane had been advised to retract and apologise which he agreed to, but reneged on the agreement.
Bonang and AKA dated for two years before splitting up in 2017.