22 January 2006
Johannesburg — CELEBRATED playwright Mbongeni Ngema says he is not solely to blame for the break-up of his 13-year marriage to award-winning actress Leleti Khumalo.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Times, Ngema said the couple were still deeply in love and that both of them were responsible for the split.
He was at pains to admit that his roving eye and an appetite for chasing women could have led to his separation from Khumalo - the woman who played the lead role in the Oscar-nominated film Yesterday.
"It could be both parties to blame but I deny that I am solely responsible for the split," said Ngema.
"We have agreed that we should amicably end our marriage but, strangely, we are still deeply in love even today, which makes things even more complicated. You can never be happy with this. There are rarely winners in a separation or divorce."
Ngema, creator of the popular political musical play Sarafina and its Grammy-nominated film version, said he was saddened by the break-up but that the couple had not yet filed divorce papers. He declined to comment on how they will split their assets now that they were living apart.
Both Ngema, 50, and Khumalo, 35, currently live in separate houses in the northern suburb of Melrose, Johannesburg.
In a joint statement they said that "events and other forces of fate" had necessitated their split.
A publicity-shy Khumalo declined to comment.
Her agent Moonyeen Lee said she didn't know what could have led to the couple's split and added that Khumalo has never discussed her marital problems with her.
"I don't know what happened between them," said Lee.
"We are all sad about their break-up. I am sad, she is sad and he is sad too."
Ngema and Khumalo tied the knot in 1992 at a glittering, albeit private, wedding ceremony at eNhlwathi, near Hlabisa, in KwaZulu-Natal.
But Ngema's love life has been fraught with difficulties.
As an uncompromising traditionalist, he had three wives at the same time: Johannesburg Development Agency's project leader Xoliswa Ngema, who has since divorced him; amateur actress Cebisila Mpungose, who was 16 years old when he married her in 1990; and Khumalo.
"It is difficult for an African man, particularly a successful one, to say he has only one partner," Ngema told True Love magazine in 2001.
Ngema is no stranger to controversy. In 1995 he won an irregular tender from then Minister of Health Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma; he was declared insolvent in 2003, and also angered Indian people with his song Amandiya, which accused Indians of being racist and thinking that they were superior to black Africans.
Ngema met the 14-year-old Khumalo while she was still a member of a Durban dance group called Amajika, headed by traditional music icon Tu Nokwe.
Overwhelmed by her talent and, not least, her ravishing looks, Ngema wrote the lead character of Sarafina especially for her. The musical portrays the 1976 Soweto student uprising.
The role catapulted Khumalo to fame and fortune - a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress; an NAACP Image Award for Best Stage Actress; a role alongside Whoopi Goldberg; and a further nomination for an Image Award, together with Angela Bassett, Goldberg and Janet Jackson.
She is now acting in the local soapie, Generations, playing Busiswe Dlomo, the sister of power-hungry businessman Ngamla, played by Menzi Ngubane.
Last year Khumalo starred in Yesterday, the pioneering Zulu feature film about Aids , which was nominated in the 2005 Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Picture.
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