Picking up the pieces of one’s life after the loss of a partner is not easy. But when you’re a celebrity constantly under pressure to innovate and release new music to entertain, moving on can be even more difficult when having to cope with grief in the public eye.
Now, three years after watching the man she loved die in her arms, singer Kelly Khumalo says she has finally moved on.
The Asine hitmaker told Weekend Argus she is “happier than I’ve ever been”, after having to rebuild her life following the murder of her boyfriend, former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa, in a botched robbery in Vosloorus in October 2014.
“I have learnt to love myself and make myself happy and I have moved on with my life.”
Khumalo, who was in the city to promote her newest single, Lonely Fool, with musician and 2011 Idols SA finalist Kyle Deutsch, said she had not been in a relationship since Meyiwa’s death.
“I have accepted my reality and my reality is that life will throw curved balls at you and it is not about those curved balls, but rather how you deal with them.
“For the first time in a long time, I feel free. I felt suffocated in my previous relationships. I had been looking for someone to love me in a certain way I did not love in myself and that also suffocated the person I was with, so now for the first time I can say I am happy because I have learnt to love myself.”
While she refused to go into detail about the events leading up to the day of Meyiwa’s murder in 2014, the singer held an Up Close and Personal concert in Johannesburg this year, where she “told everything to everyone who was there and wanted to know what happened that day”.
“That was the point of the concert, so now I believe that chapter of my life is closed and I do not want to go back
there again.”
The case into Meyiwa’s murder has since gone cold.
Khumalo, a mother of two – a 7-year-old boy fathered by singer and parolee Molemo “Jub-Jub” Maarohanye and a 3-year-old son by Meyiwa – said her children would not have any relationship with their fathers’ families until they were old enough to do so on their own.
“If they have a relationship with those people it means I have to have a relationship with them and I refuse to do that. Those people do not deserve to be in my children’s lives, they do not deserve to be in a space with my children and I refuse to allow them anywhere near my children.”
In recent months, Khumalo has been plagued by rumours of skin lightening, something she’s vehemently denied.
“I have not bleached my skin. I will in the future, though, because I have the money and I want to do it, but I haven’t done it as yet.”
For now, the “adventurous, free-spirited” mother says she just wants to be left alone to enjoy her life.
Fans of the star can look forward to her next big project, a starring role in upcoming movie The Zulu Wedding, which is due for release in cinemas in February. 2018
She will also be working on her DStv talk show, Love and Matrimony and the promotional tour for Lonely Fool. The single has already been getting considerable airplay on radio stations since its October release and Khumalo describes the song as her tale of “an empty love life”.
As the interview drew to a close, Deutsch joined the chat, which invoked a massive smile from Khumalo.
The chemistry between them two is electrifying and they seamlessly begin singing a few bars of their hit single, to the delight of those around them, proving not even tragedy can break down a woman as multi-talented as Khumalo.
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