According to a close family friend, actress Sophie Ndaba fled from her husband, Bishop Keith Harrington, in fear of impending violence.

The Generations star apparently told the source and others of her fear that the pastor, who allegedly owns his own firearm, would be driven by jealousy and irrational paranoia into using it on her.

“Sophie came to us and said Keith had been accusing her of knowing other men in the biblical sense and was scared he would shoot her because he owns a gun. We were all shocked.”

The friend, who asked to remain anonymous, told Sunday World that she was stunned to hear from Sophie that Harrington, a supposedly religious man, was packing a deadly weapon.

“How can a priest own a gun?” asked the source.

Ndaba, who plays Queen in Generations, explained to her friend that Harrington had obtained the gun as part of an effort to bolster security on his property in Mpumalanga. But when he brought it with him to Jo’burg, and begun haranguing her about imaginary affairs with other men, the actress started to panic.

“She was scared that because they go to his house in Mpumalanga quite often, he would hold her hostage there and shoot her because he kept accusing her of seeing other men.”

The friend told the paper that the voluptuous soap star had wanted to terminate her marriage to Harrington as far back as January, only one month after it began, when the extent of his paranoia started to become obvious.

“He seems to suffer from an inferiority complex,” said the trusted source.

The source recounted an incident when Harrington, after witnessing his wife field a barrage of phone calls from male clients in connection with her business dealings,  flew into a jealous rage of biblical proportions.

“Some of these calls were from male clients who wanted to give her business but he angrily asked her if she was cheating on him.

“A relationship is based on trust and Sophie felt emotionally abused by these accusations,” said the source.

The situation rapidly deteriorated and when Harrington accused her of cheating on him when she returned from a government event where she was acting as an MC, Ndaba was fast approaching breaking point.

After explaining to her irate husband that her cellphone had died during the conference, the actress removed herself to the garden for some time alone. But the pastor refused to let matters rest.

“He then charged at her and angrily asked her ‘what are you thinking about?’

“Sophie couldn’t take it anymore,” says the friend.

The source alleged that as part of an introspective process that ultimately led her to decide to dissolve her marriage, Ndaba went without food for three weeks.

Thereafter, “she sat him down and told him that she had had enough and it was over.”

The pastor, who was residing in Ndaba’s home in Constantiakloof, Joburg, gathered his personal effects and left.

“He later sent her an SMS saying he respects her decision.

“That man moved out a month ago and I don’t know how you guys missed it,” added the friend.

When contacted by the Sunday World, Harrington rubbished the suggestion that he had ever accused Ndaba of cheating.

“Is that what she is saying? That is not true,” he said, before denying that he owns a gun.

“I don’t own a gun any more. I sold it a long time ago,” he insisted, before admitting to not remembering precisely when he sold it.

Ndaba refused to comment further, saying: “I stick by the press statement I released last week.

“I can’t deny nor confirm what you are asking me”.

Besides the apparently misguided allegations of cheating on the pastor’s part, the former couple’s relationship was also rocked by recent reports in the press concerning his doctorate in theology.

An article in Sunday World revealed that the  International Theological Seminary in California, the institute from which he supposedly obtained the degree (and other qualifications) does not exist. Adding further embarrassment was the discovery that situated at the address, where the seminary was supposedly located, was nothing but an abandoned car park.

The paper also alleged that Harrington had conducted an extra-marital affair of his own, with a woman called Nthabiseng, and that prior to marrying Ndaba, he had been involved in a scandalous relationship with a young member of his own congregation in Dennilton, Limpopo.