Ever had somebody betray your trust? Where they came out and told a story that they had no right to tell? Imagine being homosexual and somebody dragging you out of the closet before you are ready. This is basically what happened to Babes Wodumo. We need to agree that there is a wrong way of doing the right thing and sometimes the end doesn’t justify the means.
Abuse is a very hard thing to go through. Each person deals with it the way they’d like to. How many cases of abuse go by unreported? Truth is, having your traumatic experience out there in the public has backlashes. I know this from experience. You cannot come out and be vulnerable about what happened and have everybody be sympathetic. There are trolls that will stick their fingers in your wounds and rub it with salt. Nobody deserves that pain on pain, its not fair. Don’t make her a poster child for abuse if she doesn’t want to.
This is gonna anger some people but I didn’t like Oprah for this reason. Oprah would sit there and make survivors relive their worst experiences and show very little sympathy. She would occasionally hand them tissue to wipe their tears. Nothing about Oprah made me feel like she genuinely cared about her guests. She would sit there stone cold and keep pressing for the details while you sob. You didn’t realise the injustice because hey, it was Oprah, she was also a survivor.
I’d like to think Babes Wodumo was verbally raped. Yes, what is the definition of rape? She did not want to tell this story. From what I gather, she was on the mend. She had left Mampintsha, had a new man and is moving on with her career. Why then drag up all the drama that she had put behind her. She was dealing with it in her own way and we needed to trust her process. If she wanted to tell this story she would have, in her own time, in her own way in a classy interview of a top SA magazine. Only when she was ready.
We don’t know how being ousted will now change her life. We didn’t do research to find out what her current situation is and how this will affect other areas of her life. We have forced her to skip several healing processes which is callous. Focus has shifted from her upcoming music to how she is a victim of abuse. To what end? For Mampintsha to release a PR statement that was very professional, cold and unapologetic. How is this helping Babes? That PR statement is written in meticulous English which tells me that Mampintsha didn’t even write it himself. Salt to injury.
If you really wanted to help Babes Wodumo, you would have approached her woman to woman to discuss what happened to her. Why wait to ambush her live on air with the nation listening? What did you expect to happen? Embarrass Mampintsha at the expense of this girl’s heart? This is why this looks shady laced with ulterior motives for a ratings boost. I’d like to hope that my friends will not try and help me by airing my dirty laundry on mainstream media. Notice how when Babes is sobbing in the bathroom your caring Masechaba is nowhere to be heard.
If your friend is going through some abuse, please be careful how you handle this matter. You cannot just go in there gung-ho with all guns blazing. Don’t tell anyone who is willing to listen. The only person you need to be speaking to is your friend. Approach her and get the real story. From there you can advise accordingly. Can she afford to leave? What other issues are in play here? Babes has been with this man since her teens, you mean her family didn’t know about this? Why did they keep quiet? Could she have possibly been a sad tale of a child marriage? These matters are never just black and white. I get peeved when people want to play Saviour Jesus in other people’s lives with inaccurate or inadequate information. Let’s not pretend that we don’t know that these matters can be fatal at times. Let’s not play with people’s lives unnecessarily. Follow proper protocol and minimize the harm to all parties involved.
Missed the interview? Watch it below:
