Durban businessman Kgolo “DaGuru” Mthembu, husband of Real Housewives of Durban star Annie Mthembu, has laid bare his soul in a gut-wrenching interview on Mo and Phindi’s Podcast.
The mogul didn’t hold back, confessing to a string of personal failures that rocked his marriage and left him spiralling into despair.
“I’m a broken man,” DaGuru admitted, his voice heavy with regret.
Damaged, unhealed soul
“We come into people’s lives damaged, unhealed, and it’s unfair to them. If you don’t love yourself, you can’t give someone love or time.
“I was no role model, no hero. One day, you become an animal if you don’t love yourself,” he added.
The businessman revealed he made a “selfish” call to pull out of Real Housewives after realising the show exposed their lives too much.
“We gave people power to control our relationship. But I cannot blame the show,” he said, admitting the spotlight took a toll.
But the couple’s darkest moment came during their traditional wedding weekend.
He said Annie sensed something was wrong with their unborn child.
Lost baby on wedding weekend
“She told me she couldn’t feel the baby’s heart beating. But I brushed it off as anxiety and excitement,” DaGuru shared.
“I’m a man of faith. I said, ‘God will never put us through that on our wedding weekend. We can’t lose our son after three miscarriages already’.”
Tragically, after the wedding, she insisted on seeing a doctor, only to deliver a stillborn son.
“We buried our son that Sunday,” DaGuru said.
“It was devastating.” The pain didn’t end there. DaGuru shared that Covid-19 shook his faith, sparking a midlife crisis.
“I asked myself if this was the end of the world. I said, ‘Let me enjoy for the last time,’ I didn’t take accountability. And I was drinking every day for two years, trying to escape. I’m not sure if I was eating, but I know I drank. It’s like I was trying to kill myself, but I couldn’t die.”
His downward spiral hit his business hard.
Lootings, the rehab stint
DaGuru revealed his company was the only one looted during the KwaZulu-Natal riots.
Burnt out and battling alcoholism, he checked himself into rehab. It cost a staggering R70,000 a month.
“People were saying a lot, so I went, only for me to relapse again. If I can, I would sue that place,” he said.
Reflecting on his mistakes, DaGuru confessed that he has hurt a lot of people.
“I disappointed a lot of people. I still pray for the day they forgive me.”
He found solace in faith, getting baptised again in February.
