Lerato Kganyago graced our August issue. Here are 5 things we found out about her from our cover story.
She’s got a new show
This month, Lerato is set to anchor an upcoming talk show on EbonyLife TV called Moments. EbonyLife is Africa’s first global black entertainment and lifestyle network airing on DStv.
This is big for me because we’ll be targeting millions of viewers across the continent and already the channel is doing great. The show will have different anchors across Africa, with Pearl and I as the South African hosts. It’s a huge role as we’ll be exposing people to different African cultures. The content will be usual talk – varying in different topics each week about health, entertainment and lifestyle,” Lerato sums things up.
It’s finally her time
I do feel it’s my time now because I’ve worked hard to get to where I am and have had a beautiful journey of waiting, patience and mastering my skills, but it’s also everyone’s time to shine too. I’d rather say it’s my time to learn more because I don’t think they’ll ever be a time where I’ll I say I’m the greatest presenter ever because there’s always room for improvement.
We all succeed at different paces and lanes. I always tell myself that I’m running my own race because when I do so, I don’t expect pressure from others. It takes maturity to be able to sit back and tell yourself that whatever Sunday tabloids have written about you is to sell papers; a lot of us can see through the lies.
She’s not an Ice Queen
People who give me nasty labels don’t know me at all. I remember sitting down with a friend one day and asked for their opinion on this “controversy” often linked to me, because as far as I know, controversy is when someone murders their partner, goes to jail or does drugs. I haven’t done any of these things or anything remotely close to that. But, just because I speak my mind and never let anyone walk all over me, I’m said to be controversial. I think because of Soweto TV background, people assume I won’t voice out my opinion, but that will never happen! If I don’t like something, I’ll always say so. Contrary to the assumption that I respond to every negative tweet about me, I don’t. I always ignore it at first or block the person, but when everyone starts retweeting it and tagging me or the culprit tweets more negative things about me, then I reply. I pick my battles and only respond when I feel I’m being degraded, disrespected or my family is threatened. Social media perpetuates the worst behaviour in people where they assume its okay to verbally abuse others. I don’t stand for that at all and that’s why I fight back.
The break-up with Katlego Mashego hurt her
Katlego and I are still very good friends, though we aren’t together anymore. I still love him; he’s my boy. If it was meant to be, we’ll get back together; and if we don’t, it’s still okay. If he went off and married someone else, I’d be genuinely happy for him, and I think that’s how he feels about me too. We were together for four years and therefore we were more than partners, we were each other’s best friend. I wish him all the best and I’m always the first to call when he gets injured on the pitch. I also call to congratulate him when he scores. There’s no beef between us at all. I’m content with the decision I made about the relationship. We broke up because we went through a rough patch that made our relationship toxic and neither of us could get over that. We needed time to heal from that, separately.
She lost herself in the relationship
In our four years together, I forgot about myself – what I felt and wanted. When I realised this, I made up my mind to do right by me and put myself first. I neglected myself in the relationship and put things I wanted to do on hold – there were times I wouldn’t go to auditions for gigs because I worried about not being home on time and Katlego not finding me there. I sought to be the perfect girlfriend and lost focus. I remember once while in the studio recording for The Link, inside I wanted to wrap up quickly so I could go home, cook and have everything ready for him. At that time, he was my main focus and I forgot to live and follow my dreams. All I wanted was to make him happy; if he was smiling and doing great in his career, I was happy and that’s all that mattered. He was never abusive; he was himself throughout the relationship, but I was just in an unnecessary pursuit of being the perfect girlfriend. Ending things was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I also worried about what people would say and was afraid of singlehood.
She is single
After we broke up, I pretended to friends, family and the media that we were still together – for nine months. This was because I needed time to mourn and heal before anyone voiced their opinions. I also wanted to be sure I’d made the right decision without pressure from other people. It worked because when I eventually told my family, I wasn’t ashamed of my decision. My mom understood fully and didn’t dwell on the issue. Katlego pretended we were together too, because he saw me doing it; and I think he must have thought I was not serious about breaking up and would get back with him. He really wanted us to work; we even tried to work things out. We considered going for counselling and prayed together for our relationship, but in the end breaking up was the best solution. I needed to focus on me for me a change. Journalists noticed that I didn’t wear my engagement ring sometimes and assumed we’d broken up. We were still together at that time and I didn’t wear my ring because he hadn’t yet paid lobola. I realised wearing the ring was disrespectful to my parents. I’m single and not ready for a boyfriend right now because I’m busy. And yes, I miss being a girlfriend, having someone to talk to and share my ups and downs with.
Cover story written by Phila Tyekana
