I wanted to end it all: ProVerb

TO many South Africans, he has the world at his feet.

But former rapper and Idols SA host ProVerb has revealed harrowing details of his deep depression in 2015, which culminated in his attempted suicide following his split from his wife.

In his tell-all memoir, titled The Book of ProVerb, he writes how, on his way to an event one Friday night in 2015, he stopped at a pharmacy and, feigning a severe toothache, asked for the strongest painkillers.

He stopped at another pharmacy and did the same thing, and a third.

He drove home, hugged his estranged wife Onalerona and went to the patio.

With a bottle of wine and boxes of painkillers, he locked the door and all access points.

“I was emotional, but in my mind I felt quite sane about the plan I was about to execute. I was motivated by my failure to provide my children with a stable home life

… The decision to divorce left me with a severe sense of failure and I didn’t want to continue witnessing the disintegration of my family. If I were dead I wouldn’t have to see my wife and kids leave to start their new life without me,” he writes in the book.

After swallowing the pills he passed out, but was later found by his brother and rushed to hospital.

“I cried hysterically, trying to tell everyone that I was sorry. I told the doctor: ‘Man, this isn’t me. I am not this person.’ I was trying to appear

sane because everyone was giving me this ‘You’ve lost your mind’ look.”

He said he woke up the next morning with clarity on the way forward.

“I was keen to leave the hospital [the following day], but they wouldn’t allow it … So I didn’t make it to Idols rehearsals that day, and I still don’t know who in the production team knows about my suicide attempt. When I was discharged the following day and made it to rehearsals, no mention was made of it. I asked for my script, we ran the rehearsal and did the show to perfection. There were no mistakes, it was business as usual.”

Months before, ProVerb — real name Tebogo Thekisho — learnt that his wife had had an affair when he got a call from a journalist who asked him about her trip to Dubai with a businessman and their alleged relationship.

The couple tried to work through their problems in counselling, but by October 2015 they decided to get divorced.

“I smiled, I was charming. I presented Idols every Sunday without skipping a beat and said good night enthusiastically as if my life was amazing. Then I went home to cry,” ProVerb writes in the book.