his partner could witness his success. In an exclusive interview with DRUM the radio host and actor reveals a well of sadness behind his larger-than-life personality. He’s opening up about losing the man he’d hoped to marry.
She credits Khathide Ngobe – a fellow DJ – for introducing her to conservative maskandi followers, who now refer to her as MaMkhize.
And she – Selbyonce warned me never to use he when referring to her – is not apologetic about her sexual orientation and knows how to tell homophobes when to sit down.
“I tell them to get out of our way, because we are here to stay,” she says with a wry smile.
“We can talk until we turn blue in the face, the only way to address them [the homophobe] is to be direct. We can’t beg them to like or accept
us. It’s now up to them.”
She joined Ukhozi FM in 2012 as a gossip snippet contributor and worked her way up. She reckons that the station’s listeners are changing.
“The perception of it being listened to by the old is long gone. It has given birth to a new generation of listeners. It’s a family radio station,
everyone fits in. Times are changing,” she said.
She said these listeners have welcomed her with open arms, with “one or two who will write horrendous things on your DM”.
Growing up in Amaoti, an informal settlement north of Durban, was not easy for this DJ.
“In high school I was always around girls, girls and girls. I didn’t play boys’ games. Here I knew exactly what was going on with my sexuality. I knew I wanted to marry a boy unlike the young me who felt that I was different but didn’t know what was going on
“I don’t know if I can love again,” he says. He met his late partner, Sipho Maluleka, after a friend picked him up at Joburg’s OR Tambo Airport in 2015. “My friend took me to a house session and I spotted him, all quiet and reserved, in the corner.” As the drinks started flowing Sipho mustered the courage to speak to Selbeyonce and asked him on a date.
“He said let’s go out for lunch tomorrow. I was playing hard to get But that didn’t stop Sipho, who worked in finance, from pursuing him. A few months later the two were dating and madly in love. “Funny thing is, Sipho didn’t know I was famous.” After dating for a year, marriage was on the cards, Selbeyonce told DRUM.
“I love my partner and I’d like to get married some day and have my own family,” he said at the time (Radio’s perfect pair, 21 January 2016). But his dream of marrying his “amazing and kind” lover was dashed when Sipho was killed in a car crash in January this year. Selbeyonce had spoken to Sipho (29), who’d been driving his grandmother on an errand, two hours before the tragedy.
“All of a sudden I got a call saying he had died on the spot.” It’s been ten months since he lost the love of his life and Selbeyonce is still picking up the pieces.
“I’d never been loved like that. I was his first gay lover. He knew his sexuality. He said he wanted to express it with someone he really loves and that was me.” Sipho made Selbeyonce feel beyond special. “He sent me a text once asking me where I’d been all his life and that he couldn’t go a day without talking to me.”
Moving on is tough, he adds. “Sometimes I wake up and I drive to where he had the accident. It took me a long