Brinnette Seopela is getting candid about her alleged abusive relationship with ex-husband Themba Gezane. The Real Housewives of Johannesburg star claims that she suffered abuse at the hands of her husband. While Brinnette reveals she's happier now after ending her marriage, she alleges he abused her days after tying the knot.
“We had just come back from our honeymoon in New York, and we had an argument,” she told DRUM. “I went to work but because I was still stressed, I called two of my friends and we had lunch. At around 7pm, my one friend said he was making dinner so I decided to go with him.”
“Themba knew him and knew I was with him because I video-called him earlier, showing him where I was and who I was with.”
Brinnette reveals she informed her then husband about her whereabouts. But she claims that things got violent once she went home. “When I got home, he wasn’t himself. When I got into bed, he started a fight with me and shoved me out of bed,” she says, her eyes filling with tears.”
“He screamed hurtful things at me and told me to get out of his house and that he wants a divorce. It was as if he was fighting with another man. “He continued to punch and kick me. Eventually he got on top of me and strangled me. I remember thinking, in my tipsy state, ‘This guy is going to kill me if I don’t do something’. So, I kicked his private part to stop him.”
“But it didn’t stop there – at some point he poured fruit cocktail juice all over my head and I had to sleep in that sticky mess. To this day, I don’t drink fruit cocktail juice,” she said.
“At around 4am, I woke him up because I was in so much pain I couldn’t move. “He told me he was still sleeping, and he’d take me to the hospital when he wakes up at around 7am,” she says, tears now streaming.
“The nurses kept asking what happened to me. I had to lie because he was standing right there. I was scared. The nurses and the doctor could tell I was lying and when we finally had some privacy, they urged me to open a case.”
Brinnette says she didn’t open a case against him because she was scared and hoped he would never hit her again. She then revealed that she confided in friends because she didn’t want to worry her mother, Junia Senne.
“My one friend told my mom, and that was the beginning of the end. I remember hearing my mom’s voice on the phone and just bursting into tears,” she told DRUM.
Brinnette claims Themba beat her three times within the five months into their marriage. She claims he would later apologize and buy her gifts. However, things came to an end once her mother, her stepfather, Simon Dube, who had helped raise her, and her grandmother, Abigail Seopela, urged her to come back home.
“I suggested to Themba that we separate, and attend counselling to try and work on ourselves and our marriage. But while I was doing that, he kept bringing in girls to our house, into our bed.”
Brinnette stayed with Themba despite the alleged affairs and abuse but in October she reached her breaking point. “I was preparing to write a test that would usher me into a marketing course I wanted to study. I told him I was going home to study for it and would come back after writing it.”
“Themba responded by telling me not to bother going back to the house if I go home,” she said. “I left that marriage with nothing but my handbag and school backpack, wearing the dress and sneakers I was wearing that day.”
Seopela and Gezane met through social media six years ago when he sent her a direct message on Instagram. She claims that her friends warned her they weren’t suited to each other, but Themba was relentless and struck up a friendship with her. They met face to face on his birthday in May 2015 and started dating in May 2017.
“After 100 days of dating, he proposed to me with 100 roses and a candlelit dinner. Themba was very romantic, I’ll give him that,” she told DRUM. “I also liked the fact that he did things the right way – he first asked my mother’s blessing before proposing to me. Everyone loved him. Even my friends changed their minds once they saw how he treated me.”
“He was so romantic in the beginning. He treated me like a queen, so sweet and loving. It was easy to fall for him, so when he proposed, I said yes.”
“There was a little voice inside that said, ‘Maybe you’re rushing things’, but I chose to ignore it because not marrying him wouldn’t make sense.”
Looking back now, Brinnette believes the gifts and trips were all part of a ploy to manipulate her and the people around them. “The first time I suspected he might not be the person he portrays himself as, was at a party we were hosting,” she shared. “One guest came with their friend and he gave him a hard time. Eventually, he jumped on the guy, tried to beat him up.”
Brinnette added by revealing that she had suffered a miscarriage. “Yes, I did have a miscarriage just before our honeymoon. It’s still very difficult to talk about.”
Photo Credit: 1Magic, Google Images
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