AKA & Somizi’s New Love Interests
“He won’t do it to me”
In the early hours of 4 March I woke up, opened Instagram and the first picture on my feed was Nadia Nakai sitting on AKA’s lap in a clearly intimate setup. The caption of the post was ‘MEGA 2 MEGA’. At the time of the writing of this article the post is still up on the @nadianakai Instagram profile.
A few days later, I came across a picture of Troy Malange in a quasi-intimate embrace with Somizi Mhlongo. In the caption of that picture, Malange writes something to the effect that he knows some people will call him a ‘rat’ for the picture he posted.
With the AKA and Nadia Nakai picture, it was very clearly an announcement that the two of them are now in a romantic relationship. Malange’s post still leaves some room for debate. He could have been insinuating the existence of a romantic relationship or that he knows that he will receive black-lash for having any sort of acquaintanceship with Mhlongo.
These two posts come into the spotlight for me not because Mhlongo and AKA are people have a great deal of money, fame and power but because both men have been accused of physical, verbal and emotional abuse by their former spouses.
In 2021, less than a year prior to the writing of this article, both men made the news on allegations of abuse.
A leaked audio recording by Executive Producer and CEO of the BarLeader Legend Manqele revealed that Mohale Motaung alleged that he had been the victim of various forms of abuse at the hands of Mhlongo. In the recording, Motaung details events of how he has been physically man-handled, emotionally manipulated and verbally assaulted by Mhlongo before and during their marriage. These are all allegations that Mhlongo has obviously refuted. The person who has surprisingly been quite in all this is the man who recorded said audio that was subsequently ‘leaked’.
Shortly after AKA had paid lobola and had officially married (at least in the traditional sense) Anele Tembe, she jumped off the 10th floor balcony of a Cape Town hotel room she shared with AKA. She fell to her death.
It later came out, through video recordings and pictures that AKA had acted violently towards Tembe. One such picture shows that Tembe had locked herself into a room and AKA broke down the door to be able to get to her. In a separate video, Tembe tells someone in AKA’s team that ‘you don’t know what he does to me’ in a state of fear and panic.
AKA gave an interview to none other than the BarLeader owned by Legend Manqele in which he claims that he and Tembe had a ‘passionate relationship’. Perhaps I speak from a place of inexperience and naiveté but passion cannot mean breaking down a door to get to someone who has clearly (in words and action) shown that they do not want you to get to them.
I had a conversation with someone who was not trying to excuse AKA’s actions but alluded to a perspective that AKA may have done that to make sure that Tembe does not hurt herself while in the bedroom all by herself. The facial expression of AKA as he walked into that room and what looked like he was lunging at Tembe makes me doubt he did that out of concern for her safety.
I bring up the allegations of abuse by these men and their potential new found romance less than a year since the allegations to explore the mindset of the people who then decide to enter into romantic relationships with these men — after the fact.
By no means am I saying that anyone who is accused of abuse within a romantic or sexual context loses the right to romance or should not be able to get into another romantic relationship after that. That is simply not possible and there is no way something like that can be policed either within the criminal justice system or in the realm of public policing.
The more curious questions is how the people who do decide to get into relationships with these men rationalize that decision.
It is not lost on me that Mhlongo and AKA wield copious amounts of wealth, power and status. Both Tembe and Motaung were virtually unknown until it was revealed that they are romantically involved with these men. I have said before and continue to maintain that Motaung accumulated the social media following he has, which he now uses to make money through influencer work, because he was married to Mhlongo.
Fully cognizant of the money, power and fame these men have — how does one still enter into a romantic relationship with any one of them knowing that they both were potentially abusive to their former spouses?
We live in a South Africa that never believes the victim. When the news of the circumstances around Tembe’s passing hit, there were many people who swore that AKA had absolutely nothing to do with the decision Tembe made. On my podcast I reflected on Tembe’s passing and subsequent calls for AKA to be de-platformed off of music streaming platforms. In that episode I make the argument that AKA may not be criminally liable for Tembe’s death but that he is guilty of something. Same with Mhlongo, scores of fans came to his defense when Motaung accused him of abuse.
I do not want to state categorically that Nadia Nakai and Troy Malange are part of the people who do not believe the alleged victims of these men but the likelihood is very high. Otherwise how do you justify being in a relationship with either one of these men without first convincing yourself that he is not guilty of the thing he is being accused of?
But for a moment let’s assume Nadia Nakai and Malange do believe the alleged victims of these men and they do hold as true that these men were abusive to their former spouses. They then have to go the extra step of convincing themselves that “he won’t do it to me”, and that is one of the most dangerous conclusions one can come to.
Perhaps this might sound contradictory but I do believe in rehabilitation and the potential of people who have been abusive in the past to rehabilitate. But I also believe that a core tenant of rehabilitation is public accountability.
For me — for AKA and Somizi to say they have rehabilitated, they have to stand in the truth of what they are alleged to have done. Something they have not done and will likely never do. How then do we say they have rehabilitated if they have not even admitted what they are guilty of?
In the absence of any public confessions of wrong-doing and assuming the alleged victim’s side of the story is true, what assurance do the new romantic interests of these men have that the same thing won’t be done to them?
The way I see it, anyone who engages romantically with AKA has to be alive to the fact that in a conflict situation, AKA will do everything in his power to get to you even when you have put physical barriers in place to make sure he doesn’t get to you. You also have to accept the very real possibility that we will do things to you in private that you will not be able to reveal in public out of fear of secondary victimization.
For anyone who considers or enters into any romantic engagement with Mhlongo, you have to accept the possibility of being pushed, shoved, the withdrawing of affection during conflict and his using his wealth as a form of control over you. These are very real facts that people who engage with Mhlongo romantically have to contend with.
The only way to continue pursuing a romantic relationship with any one of these men with their alleged history of abuse is if you convince yourself that “he won’t do it to me”. My question is, what’s so special about you?
