Lion King producer Lebohang Morake has taken his long simmering co-parenting battle with actress Zoe Mthiyane to court after she allegedly failed to help him secure their child’s travel documents.
Morake, known as “Lebo M”, has applied for an urgent interim court order in the Johannesburg High Court to suspend the former Generations actress’s parental rights and
responsibilities.
The award-winning producer has also applied for an order to allow him to acquire a passport for the child at the Department of Home Affairs without written consent from Mthiyane.
Their court battle comes two months after they publicly accused each of bad co-parenting.
Mthiyane accused Morake of being a bad co-parent compared to sports presenter Robert Marawa, the father of her other child.
Morake hit back and accused the actress of not visiting her child for several months.
Morake confirmed he has taken Mthiyane to court.
He said he was forced to change his holiday plans as a result of her refusal to help him secure a passport for the child.
In the court papers, which we have seen, Morake, who recently wedded his fourth wife Pretty Samuels-Morake, said he broke up with the actress when the child was nine months old in April 2016.
Morake said he continued to live with the child and his eldest son in Blair Athol in Lanseria, Johannesburg.
He said the child’s passport expired on September 9, 2020, but he did not see the urgency to renew it because of travel restrictions due to Covid-19.
When he and his wife, he said, decided to travel abroad with the child to shoot a documentary, he asked Mthiyane to sign a letter of consent as required by the Department of Home Affairs in order to issue a travel passport for the child, but she dilly-dallied.
He said he and his wife contacted a Home Affairs official known only as “Ms Phila” at the passport renewals and applications unit through his attorney to establish whether they could renew the child’s passport without Mthiyane’s consent.
The official told them that only a court order would enable them to do so.
“My wife and I have been trying to engage with respondent for the past few months for the purpose of renewal of (name withheld)’s passport as she must not only co-sign such application but be physically present when such application is made,” reads the paper. He said if the actress frus-
trated his plans to travel overseas, he would lose a lot of money and the child would not be part of the show. “It is my submission and belief (name withheld) does not deserve for me to have to answer one day why she was left out of such an important part of our family history,” read the papers.
As a result, he said, he wants the interim order to suspend all the parental rights and responsibility the actress enjoys until January 23 next year.
Morake also accused Mthiyane of forsaking the child, saying she has only seen the child a few times after Judge Monama of the Joburg High Court granted him custody in December 2018.
He said the last time Mthiyane saw the child was on Mother’s Day last year.
Mthiyane was not available at the time of going to print.
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