Former e.TV Scandal! actress and now DJ Nomvelo Makhanya, fondly known as Lindiwe, has broken her silence after leaving the show.
In an interview with the Access Genie podcast, the actress said she was written off the show because she had decided to report her director and floor manager for being drunk on set.
“I was written off a week and a half after I had reported them and I got called into the office. The news was delivered to me, and it was made to seem like I was the one with the problem. Like I was the one with the issues. But I took it like a champ and held my head high,” she shared.
Made her working life unbearable
According to Makhanya, her last months with the production were extremely tough.
“I stopped vlogging for my YouTube channel because I would be told that I am wasting production’s time. [And they claimed] that they constantly had to wait for me, which was untrue. They found little things just to make it seem like it was a problem.
“Even with live videos on my Instagram promoting the show, I stopped doing that. I stopped because it was like I was wasting their time and that was new.”
Makhanya said the people she had reported, started speaking about her departure in the corridors.
“A lot of the time, people in power always want to show you that they hold the trump cards. And when you start speaking up against their bullsh*t, they want to make sure that you struggle.
“I was redlisted, for a while. That basically means you do not work. The minute you show up, they already know who you are because they have been told. They wanted to prove that they are bigger than me and they made me, it is a power thing.”
Healed and moving on
She said she was not severely affected financially because of her savings. However, her extreme anxiety made her suicidal.
“I was very suicidal just after I lost my job, I have got extreme anxiety. So I heard voices in my head that would constantly tell me that I deserved it. I spent so much of my time, and I gave so much of myself to that show for 10 years.
“But what is strange is that I make a lot of money outside of acting now.”
In the past 18 months, the actress said she has done a lot of healing and therapy to get to where she is currently.
