Following an episode of Living The Dream With Somizi on Showmax, Bahumi had Twitter chime in with their opinions. Currently, Bahumi is contesting the change of her surname from her mother's Palesa Madisakwane surname to her dad's Somizi Mhlongo surname. As a way to find herself, she spoke with her parents and even went to the grave of her grandma Mary Twala in order to find her own sense of belonging, and users on Twitter feel that neither her mother nor Somizi are allowing her space to voice her feelings.
Palesa and Bahumi have had lengthier screentime as they have been cast on the 5th season of Somizi’s reality TV show and the storyline surrounding them is Bahumi wanting to change her surname to her father’s Mhlongo name. The mother Palesa is disputing this claiming, together with her father that Somizi ought to do the right thing culturally and pay damages for Bahumi whom they had out of wedlock back in the early 90s when the two dated.
Palesa also voiced out in the latest episode that Somizi’s sexuality was only brought up to her during her pregnancy with Bahumi and that she’d not known prior. In fact, the actress said she usually hears Somizi in interviews claiming that she knew about his sexuality and slammed that to be not true. Palesa says this period of her life was confusing as she didn’t understand what being gay meant, adding she was young at the time and all she wanted to do was brag that her boyfriend was part of Sarafina.
When her friend asked if she suspected Somizi was gay, she answered: “Funny enough, he didn’t act gay, or seem flamboyant…
“What hurts me the most is when he does his interviews, or when I read somewhere, he would often say that I knew he is gay. That is false, how did I know such?”
She explains she learnt about homosexuality through him and was unaware of the LGBTIQ community before meeting the dance choreographer.
Somizi is also taking this hard and even mentioned in the episode that he had a rough year that would have easily justified him committing suicide.
Online users on Twitter have been weighing in on this and many feel that Somizi’s family needs to consult a professional spiritual and cultural healer to guide them through the surname change of her daughter and on doing things by the law of their cultures.
One user named Tshegofatso shared an expressive thread on Twitter where she wrote, “If Somizi was not busy running around with friends and forgetting about his child, he would’ve fixed the surname thing a long time ago. Now it’s like Bahumi is forcing hun to do the right thing like he was forced with umemulo. He doesn’t even seem to be interested,” she added, “Somizi is bubbly, happy and very welcoming to his friends. They speak highly of him and what a good, generous and thoughtful person he is… then there’s Bahumi who yearns for everything that Somizi’s friends get from him. Now I understand why she’d always speak to TT.”
Another user wrote, “Bahumi’s mother is right. The father’s side of the family has no right over the child if the damages haven’t been paid and it the paternal side hasn’t even welcomed the child, even ancestors don’t recognize the child.”
