Sunday Times

No Oscars carpet kiss for Anele

- By ALEX PATRICK

Anele Mdoda’s greatest fear ahead of her red-carpet gig at the Oscars tonight is that she will “merge with the carpet”.

The radio and TV personalit­y will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest celebritie­s at the 91st Academy Awards in Los Angeles when she hosts a special M-Net red-carpet preview from there.

“I fall all the time. It’s my thing. My friends call it merging with the floor, and I am good at it. Mergers and acquisitio­ns. Jennifer Lawrence fell the one year at the Oscars … you get up and you keep it moving,” Mdoda told the Sunday Times shortly before boarding a plane for her flight to the US.

She was tight-lipped about her dress, saying only that it had been designed by Juan William Aria. “By the time Juan finished sketching it and showing the material it was so much more than what I had envisioned.”

Mdoda will be sporting peroxided hair at the event. “The love-and-hate roller coaster with the new hairstyle,” she guffawed.

“I wanted a certain colour dress so myself, my makeup artist, PA and hair stylist decided that blonde would be the best colour to complement the dress. No-one warned me about the pain of peroxide, yoh! But I love it, so, yeah, beauty is pain.”

She said she was most excited to see personalit­ies Rami Malek, Spike Lee, Mahershala Ali, Bradley Cooper, Glenn Close and the entire Black Panther cast. She is really hoping Denzel Washington will attend, too. “His son’s [John David Washington’s] movie [Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlan­sman] is nominated so perhaps we will be lucky.”

To get ready for the red carpet, Mdoda’s beauty regimen will start on the plane.

“My personal trainer gave me some bloatno-more medicine and said I am allowed two glasses of wine so I don’t swell. Otherwise a wipe-down with wet wipes, moisturise­r and sleep will do the trick.”

M-Net’s red-carpet preview with Mdoda will be screened tomorrow at 8.30pm on channel 104 before a recording of the awards shows on channel 101 at 9pm.

For those who can’t wait, the Oscars will be screened live tomorrow at 3am on channel 101.

 ?? Picture: Lungani Africa ?? Anele Mdoda on her way to the Oscars.
Picture: Lungani Africa Anele Mdoda on her way to the Oscars.

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