Lebo M, Zoe fight over baby
LION KING PRODUCER DEMANDS ACCESS TO 11-MONTH-OLD
THE bitter break-up between Lebo Morake and Zoe Mthiyane has taken a turn for the worst.
Morake, popularly known as Lebo M, has slated Mthiyane for denying him access to their daughter.
Speaking exclusively to Sowetan from Canada, where he is setting up a new production to take to Broadway next year, Morake said he was left with no option but to approach the courts for co-parenting.
The high-flying couple were engaged in December and in May announced their separation, with Morake saying they couldn’t agree with Mthiyane on a prenuptial agreement.
This week, Morake charged that Mthiyane was using their daughter, Lulo, as a pawn in their break-up.
“She knows I’m travelling.
“In the last two weeks it has just been a struggle, and it’s clear that her intentions are to frustrate me [using] the child, which is unfortunate.
“I have now decided to resort to the law. I’m going to take action with the courts when I get back home. I’m paying for the child and I need to have access to her. I don’t want to go back and forth, a deal must be done with the courts.”
Morake said as a committed father he had been frustrated that he has no contact with the 11month infant.
“Lulo is my youngest child and the only one I don’t speak to. I speak to all my children via Facetime.”
He said Mthiyane posted pictures of the child on social media but failed to send him the pictures.
“My lawyers have sent her numerous letters and she just ignores them.”
Morake said in his life his six children were a priority. “I have a history of putting my children first. I fought for her child in the [Robert] Marawa case to make sure the father takes responsibility.
“Coming from where we come from, Zoe knows this so I guess it’s the only button she can press to get my attention.”
Mthiyane was involved in a maintenance suit with Marawa, the popular sportscaster and Morake revealed that he spent close to R1million in legal fees to get Marawa to cough up R6 000 a month, from R2 500.
As the details of their failed romance are laid bare, Morake rubbished a statement attributed to Mthiyane that he didn’t empower the women in his life.
“That is disturbing because I insisted that she comes with me on the Hans Zimmer tour in Europe to empower her. I paid a lot of money and when she speaks she doesn’t say ‘this man, with all the choices he had, put me on the biggest tour of his career, while we had all kinds of dramatic situations in a relationship’.
“On July 1 [when Tarzan was released in the US], Zoe’s voice was blown all over the world with the biggest movie probably of my career. I flew from New York, flew her to Cape Town to record her and feature her on the
album, which is now in the movie.
“When someone makes such a contradictory statement that I don’t empower my women and it’s someone who benefited the most – not only from the fact that I’ve taken care of her and Marawa’s son – that’s a burning issue to me.
“No one has asked Zoe, ‘did you just wake up and be on a movie? Did you just wake up and be on the tour of the biggest film composer in history?’ Those were all my efforts of empowering the mother of my child, whether she is with me or not.”
Morake further lashed Mthiyane for not facilitating a meeting between her family and his.
“The only access has been her cousin. I’m the one person that insisted that my family needed access to her family to discuss damages for the child.
“Anybody with common sense will know that you can’t discuss lobolo when you don’t have an agreement on a prenuptial. I remain firm that the break-up is a result of the prenuptial. And her retaliation is her own doing.”
Mthiyane denied Morake’s accusations. “That’s incorrect. He hasn’t called his daughter in over a week.
“The last time I tried to call him he told me that I was no longer his woman and that I don’t have the
“I’m paying for the child and need to have access
right to call him any time. That’s how we’ve been doing it. I just call him when I feel like it and let him Facetime his daughter and I send him pictures at any point. But when he said those words to me, I said I was not going to be the fool anymore and run after this guy.
“Nobody has the right to speak to the mother of their child in that manner. I called him three times, he didn’t answer and I sent him a text, then he said I shouldn’t think I can call him whenever I want. He said he was busy in Canada, and that there should be a schedule for when I call him.”
Mthiyane said her ex was “riding on this whole Marawa thing and the prenup”.
Mthiyane said she wouldn’t refuse Morake access to the child.
“If he wants to speak to the child he can text me and I will make means, even Robert knows that.”
“He [Morake] does look after his kids, I will give him that, absolutely.
“He loves his kids and looks after them financially. I will leave it at that. So far I’m waiting to see that part of him in regards with his daughter.”
Mthiyane insisted that Morake didn’t empower his women.
“With the Hans Zimmer tour he wanted me to get paid via his office and give me an allowance of my own money. As we speak, I don’t have a car, I don’t have anything that says ‘Zoe’.I’m starting from scratch. I did the demo of Tarzan that was chosen as the opening song, by God’s grace, and the tour with Hans Zimmer. With the latter I had to fight and go behind his back and speak to the bosses in order for me to get paid for that. He wanted to take 70% of my pay. Angela [his ex-wife] and all of his other women can tell you that they left with nothing when they left him.”
She insisted that, contrary to his claim, Morake knew her family. “We’ve had lunches together with my sister and brothers, my cousin and her husband. We took him to my uncle once. However, I couldn’t go full out and introduce him. We are Zulus, you can’t introduce a boyfriend, according to traditional families. “Had he done the right thing, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, but to my uncle, had he paid damages and lobola.”
This would have been Morake’s fourth mirrage.