The latest piece of news making the rounds on the blogs is that Bonang Matheba or Queen B if you are a fan (and honestly, why not?) is venturing into the music industry. After nearly two decades in the show biz world as a media personality, radio and TV presenter, businesswoman, etc., everyone should be interested in how this turns out. But this post isn’t about what might be for the star; it is about who she is and has built over the years. Yes, this is Bonang’s full biography in 1000 words.
Age, early life, and family
Bonang Matheba was born in June (25th) 1987 in Mahikeng (also known as Mafikeng), the capital of the North West Province of South Africa. She was born to an upper-middle-class family. Her mother is Charlotte Mokoena, a top shot in the Human Resource and Corporate Affairs department of Sasol, an energy firm that was begun by expert-chemists from German. Her father Gampi Matheba, a senior lecturer at North-West University in Mahikeng (and two other towns in the province).
There are two of them in the family, all daughters. Her older sister is a model and one you must have heard of. Reabetswe emerged among the top three in the 2018 edition of Miss International South Africa organized by Sun International. Bonang’s parents are no longer together. They divorced and Bonang has a half-brother named Thabo from her mother’s second marriage.
Bonang Matheba is 33 years old.
Bonang Matheba’s career
Bonang Matheba’s career began as a teenager when she would attend kids shows on South Africa Broadcasting Corporation and elsewhere. Her notable show, as a teenager, was in 2002 when she participated in Manhattan Fantasy Challenge in SABC 2. Bonang studied at the University of Johannesburg and graduated in 2007. That same year, her career as an adult began. She attended the audition for the launch of the SABC 1 music show “LIVE” (now christened “Live Amp”), won the audition and became the co-host of the show.
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She was on “Live” for five years. When she left in 2012, there was a scramble to grab her and put her in charge of many shows. She obliged a couple of them and went on to present the 18th “South African Music Awards” (2012), the lifestyle programme on SABC3 “Top billing” (2013), “Don’t Judge” (2013), the talk show “Zaziwa” on SABC1 (2013); she was the pre-host of the 2014 “MTV Europe Music Awards”, and “KFC Taste Kitchen” (2017).
Bonang’s biggest appearance on the stage must be the co-hosting of the “Global Citizen: Mandela 100 Concert” in 2018 alongside a certain Naomi Campbell and Trevor Noah. Her other popular hosting gigs include “MTV Africa Music Awards 2016” and “Miss South Africa 2018”.
In 2017, Bonang went from presenter to reality stardom when she launched “Being Bonang” on 1Magic, an imprint of her then-newly formed Bonang Matheba Entertainment company. It must be pointed out that Bonang has featured in some acting capacity the most notable being playing a nurse in the show ”
On the radio, Bonang is most remembered for the show “The B* Hive” which aired on YFM, the youth radio station based in Johannesburg. She anchored this show for five years, between 2009 and 2014. She has also worked with SABC-owned Metro FM aired on DSTV.
On the writing aspect, Bonang Matheba is also an author as she published, in 2017, her autobiography titled “From A to B”. The book attracted negative reviews for its multiple errors, ranging from typographical to factual. It was pulled out of some stores. The book was reissued after intensive editing.
On the fashion front, Bonang has a lingerie line, a handbag line, and a T-shirt line where she sells shirts with some of her best quotes or hashtag including #IAmBonang.
Bonang has a series of brand endorsements to her name over the years, some of which include cosmetic brand Revlon, vodka makers Ciroc, Ipanema sandals, the network company Cell C, Peugeot, Lifestyle Pad, Samsung, and companies in hair, fruit, razor industries, etc.
Relationship with AKA, others, is she married?
Bonang Matheba is not a married woman. In fact, at the time of writing this, she has no baby and has never been pregnant to the best of our knowledge and trust us, we have a deep knowledge of stuff like this. Not married is not not romanced as Bonang has a handful of celebrity relationships. Perhaps not a handful as they are counted in the fingers of one hand with few fingers spared but handful all the same when you consider the kind of outrage they generated.
In 2012, Bonang dated DJ Themba, a disc jockey and presenter. The relationship ended badly with Bonang accusing her ex of assaulting her. He was charged for this but she later dropped this when the two made up. The outrage was swift and unforgiving as a large section of the public accused her of lying. Bonang was horrified by this backlash which she claimed was a miracle she survived.
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Her most chequered relationship came with local superstar AKA. She was involved with him between 2015 and 2017. The heat that the relationship generated was mostly due to the fact that AKA was cheating on his baby mama DJ Zinhle with Bonang. The DJ was pregnant when their affair began.
In March 2020, AKA bragged about having laid some of the biggest names in the industry and when called out for using his affair with Bonang to “flex”, he tweeted “BONANG cannot be used. She is a Goddess.” On her part, Bonang Matheba has told fans on Twitter to leave her out of the AKA-Zinhle mess.
After years of tweeting hints, Bonang admitted, In March 2019, to Channel24 to being in a relationship, saying I have taken great care in managing my personal life and keeping it out of my business and brand since I left my ex (AKA).” While she didn’t mention him, we are nearly certain her man is Fatmir Hysenbelliu an Albanian businessman with limited football playing career. She frequents Albania, she admitted to dating an Arab (which is a colloquial way of saying Muslim), and she always engages with him online.
Image source: Cosmopolitan SA