Bongekile ‘Babes Wodumo’ Simelane trended for all the wrong reasons this year. After seeing the on-again-off-again pattern with her abusive boyfriend, Mandla ‘Mampintsha’ Maphumulo, it became more apparent that her behaviour may be a cry for help.
READ: Mampintsha and Babes Wodumo’s ‘toxic’ relationship to be showcased on Moja Love
Reeva Steenkamp and Karabo Mokoena and didn’t make it out of their lovers’ fits of rage alive.
According to police statistics, a woman is murdered every three hours in South Africa. More than half of these are at the hands of an intimate partner.
Award-winning journalist Iman Rappetti’s Loved Like Crazy documentary series aired on Monday night and shone a light on gender-based violence as 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence comes to an end today, 10 December.
“When I was asked to host the doccie, I agreed because the many layers of domestic violence have not been adequately understood, diagnosed and treated effectively in a country like ours, where violent death often stalks victims of relationships gone wrong,” she says.
Iman guides viewers through each stage of the cycles of abuse with empathy and insight, to help viewers see that Reeva, Karabo and Babes could be any of us.
According to Iman, Loved Like Crazy seeks to tease out the subtleties and overt transgressions that could take the innocent from welcome mat to gravestone.
READ: Babes Wodumo & Mampintsha want a new start
“We may think or hope that what we witness in our own relationships are minor aberrations, anomalies to be shrugged or laughed off – until we see how it ultimately translated for someone else, in terrible abuse or death. It is only when we see it starkly in someone else’s relationship that we may recognise the danger in our own, and act before it’s too late.”
Babes and Mampintsha’s toxic love story recently came to Moja Love in a series called S’khipa Amafiles, where Uyajola 9/9 presenter and rapper Jub Jub gives viewers a a behind-the-scenes perception on news they knew little or nothing of concerning big celebrities.
The repeat of Loved Like Crazy will air on Friday 13 December at 18:25 on Lifetime, DStv channel 131.