Socialite and commentator Zinhle Khumalo has dared media personality Yaya Mavundla to bring it on after failing to retract and apologise for her Twitter remarks by 6pm on Tuesday.
Sunday World reported that an argument about the origins of social spot and Joburg’s oldest the traditional medicine and food market, Kwa Mai Mai, escalated and ended in tears for Khumalo, who is better known as Zinhle Putin on Twitter – after Mavundla slapped her with legal letters and demanded R300 000 for defamation.
However, Khumalo seemingly told Mavundla to talk to the hand after she unleashed her lawyers at the 11th-hour on Tuesday, who responded to the model’s demands by stating that she will not see a penny from their client as she stands by her tweets.
The letter read: “It is manifestly clear from our client’s tweet (or Twitter comment) of 16 June 2023, which was published on Twitter, that there is nothing in its contents that is defamatory of your client. We are instructed that there were no other social media platforms other than in the Twitter platform where our client made the Twitter comment that she made.”
Khumalo also holds that her remarks were in the public interest and constitutes fair comment on facts that are true.
On Saturday, during a Twitter back-and-forth with acclaimed entertainment commentator Phil Mphela, Khumalo dragged Mavundla in a comment, accusing her of attempted rape at a popular music event, Collins Chabane music festival.
In her response to Mavundla’s lawyers, Makola Maloka Attorneys, Khumalo details that the incidents allegedly happened in a booked accommodation for the festival attendees, where the media personality was sharing a room with other people.
The letter reads: “On the evening of the actual event, our client and other invitees were booked into a local guest house where accommodation was shared. An incident occurred where one of the invitees had drank and passed out, and your client tried to make sexual advances on him because everyone was outside.
“Upon trying to go back to the room, the other invitees realised that the door was locked. They had to look through the window and shout [at] your client to not do what she was attempting to do but rather open the door.”
Khumalo added that other guests had to intervene to make sure that Mavundla does not “do what she wanted to do” and to access the room because it was a shared accommodation and someone else needed to access it so that they could sleep.
“Our client and the other invitees managed to rescue the gentleman from potential harassment from your client as he was intoxicated and perceived vulnerable.
“Your client accused those who were involved in trying to rescue the gentleman from your client of being transphobic and made claims that had it been a heterosexual woman seducing a man, the invitees would never [have] considered their behaviour as a problem,” the letter read.
In a letter of demand sent to Khumalo by Mavundla’s lawyers, she denied the allegations made and stated that they were false and carried a sole intention of causing damage to her reputation and dignity.
“By extension, they have also been made in [an] effort to disparage the good name and reputation of our client in both her personal and professional capacity, and to sully our client’s reputation within various sponsors/promoters,” the letter read.
On Tuesday Mavundla told Sunday World that she was hurt by the remarks and that she spent the rest of the day explaining to friends and family that the allegations were false.
“After finding out about these shocking and much damaging untrue allegations I was shocked and at that moment exactly I started getting a lot of calls from friends and industry colleagues. I gave everyone my word that I didn’t do it, I do, however, remember the weekend very well as I was the one who was a victim that night of bullying and my privacy being invaded by the group of people I had travelled with wanting to see who I was with in my room.
“I then contacted my management that is based in the US to find a way forward, and [they] advised me not to respond and requested that we collect evidence first to prove my innocence. I have since collected enough proof and have it on record that I did not do any of what I am accused of,” she said.
She added that she lost sponsorships from the incident. She said she plans to donate whatever amount the court decides Khumalo must pay in damages to an organisation supporting the LGBTQI community.
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