Drum – 08 August 2019

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

w.drum.co.za8 AUGUST (^2019) | 9
FT:Textmessages
tweenNeoandEmmanuel.
‘Whatdothey
wantmetodo,go
workatPickn
Pay?Never’
www
LEF
bet
o


B

OTH women have reached
out to Emmanuel’s family
for help. “His grandmother
is the one who advised me
to take him to court if he’s
not stepping up as a father,”
Ntombi says. “I don’t want to bad-mouth
them, but he does as he pleases.”
She met Emmanuel when she was in
Grade 8 at the high school they both
attended.
“To think that guy was my first love.”
For a while they were happy, but she
noticed changes in their relationship
when she became pregnant.
Still, Ntombi was shocked when she
found out her high school sweetheart
had been unfaithful. “Maybe it’s the mon-
ey that changed him. He was unapolo-
getic about his cheating, so I let him be.”
His serial cheating continued into her
pregnancy, she says. “When I gave birth,
he put money in my mother’s account
when it suited him. I would nag him that
I need money for his child and he would
ignore my messages.”
Ntombi, a makeup and beauty student
at The Pyramid Beauty School, relies on
her street-hawker mother to help raise
her child.
She hasn’t received a cent in child sup-
port since April. “I depend on my mom’s
money to take me to school, pay my bills
and take care of his child,” she says.
“It’s draining me.”
Ntombi ended things with Emmanuel
in 2016 when she found out he was
dating Neo. “Neo contacted me on Face-
book telling me to stay away from her
man and I did because I was tired of the
cheating. He also confessed to being

with her and I let them be.
“I don’t want a relationship with him,”
she says. She just wants what’s due to
her daughter.
Neo understands Ntombi’s battle. It’s
not the first time she’s hauling Emma-
nuel to court over child maintenance,
having squared off with the football
player in August 2017.
“He told the court he could afford
R4 000, but he gives me R2 000 when he
feels like it. I haven’t received anything
for the past six months,” she says.
Neo, a clerk at a pharmaceutical com-
pany, gets up at 4am to get the twins
ready for preschool at 7am. “My dad
drops them off at crèche and I have to
have a nanny ready after crèche. Those
expenses are covered by me and my
parents.
“My expenses are about R11 000 a
month, I earn a little less than that. My
parents have to help me out and that’s
not fair on them.”

N

EO’S mother
works as a recep-
tionist at a phar-
maceutical com-
pany and her
father is retired.
“Imagine my father having to
spend his retirement money

on meinsteadofenjoying it,” she fumes.
She met Emmanuel in 2015 on social
media after she added him as a friend on
Facebook. “Within an hour he sent me
an inbox asking for my number. I wasn’t
a groupie, so I was sceptical. I didn’t
know if it was him or a fake account.”
They carried on chatting on social
media and she fell for him when they
arranged to meet up. “He was my type of
a guy, kind and giving. He spoilt me. He
took me to Cubana for our first date
and we spent the night together.”
Things were rosy for about six months.
“I found out he was cheating with many
girls. But he’d apologise and I would try
to make it work.”
Eight months into their relationship,
Neo became pregnant. “He changed
even more when I was pregnant,” she
says. “He would disappear for weeks and
not call to check up on me.
“I decided to leave him in January this
year because I realised the cheating
would never stop. I was getting calls
from different girls telling me to stay
away from him. So, for the health of my
kids, I stayed away.”
She hasn’t seen Emmanuel since. “It’s
been a struggle to get him to see the
kids, pay maintenance or make an effort
to call.
“He wasn’t there when his children
were born,” Neo continues. “He’s never
seen the twins, they don’t know him or
his Kaizer Chiefs money and they’re
already two years old.”
Emmanuel tells us his children know
he’s their father. “I know when my kids
grow up they’ll come and find me with-
out their mothers stalking me on social
media.”
He’s blocked both Ntombi and Neo on
social media. “I don’t like the way they
speak to me and nag me. I want
to provide for the kids
but I’m not working.
What should I do?”
But Ntombi is tired of
putting up with the
once-promising player’s
excuses. “How is any
other soccer team sup-
posed to take him seri-
ously when he has such
a bad reputation of not
supporting his own
children?”

Ntombi Gama (ABOVE LEFT) and Neo Lebogo
(ABOVE RIGHT) claim they’ve not received child
support from Emmanuel (LEFT) in more than
four months yet he’s been seen partying in
designer clothes. He says he can’t pay up as
he’s unemployed.

GALLO IMAGES/SYDNEY SESHIBEDI, INSTAGRAM/EMMANUEL_LETLOTLO, SUPPLIED


NEWS

Free download pdf