Cover Story – Minnie Dlamini Jones On Embracing A New Career Path
Sportainment host, beauty mogul in the making, entrepreneur and all-round media darling Minenhle Dlamini Jones is at the height of her game — and writing her own script while at it!
Minenhle Dlamini Jones confidently struts into the TRUE LOVE offices, looking like someone on a serious mission. Her black tailored jumpsuit, designer shades and red bottoms (Minnie’s signature look) scream success. We’ve set the day aside to “pitch” — for lack of a better word — the visual direction for her third TRUE LOVE cover. The visual direction being the team (photographer, make-up artist, hairstylist), the styling, as well as the message we’re trying to convey to our readers and Minnie’s fans. The meeting starts off a little shaky as the fashion team pull out their mood boards in an attempt to get Minnie’s buy-in. Let’s just say, they didn’t pass! Minnie, breaks into a clear monologue of her vision to pull off a cover that would rival any Vogue Africa cover (if there ever were one). A cover, where we would see her at her most authentic – basically embodying a strong black African queen, exemplary of her self-given alias Intombi Yomzulu (that she’s swiftly had to shrug off now that she is a married woman).
Fast-forward to the shoot day and I nervously drive three hours in the sweltering heat to our location. My mind is buzzing with thoughts fluctuating between, “I hope she’s not angry about the long drive, we need good energies” to “damn, I forgot one thing from Minnie’s hospitality rider”. I’m surprisingly met by a bubbly Minnie atop a make-up chair, chatting away to the stylist and make-up artist. Thankfully, she looks calm and happy — a big relief on my side as I understand what a perfectionist she is.
So here’s the backstory: Minnie and my career have met at different points – from magazine to publicity shoots, during my tenure as a stylist. On her 2014 TRUE LOVE cover shoot, I remember excitedly commissioning a New York team to capture Minnie just as she was about to take over as Mzansi’s media darling. Rocking a pixie hair-cut, distressed denims and a smile that captured her fans’ hearts, she looked young and innocent. The second TRUE LOVE cover in 2017 was an entirely different experience — a day I believe could have possibly broken even the most confident stylist!
The shoot took place shortly after Becoming Mrs Jones had been flighted on TV, Minnie and Quinton Jones’ three-part docu-series of their nuptials. This time around, I experienced a grown Minnie with an assertiveness that kept us on our heels the entire day. Anything that could have gone wrong did – from illfitting looks to re-sourcing for clothes. For this reason, I was determined to make the TRUE LOVE 2019 shoot a far better experience. Get where my nerves were coming from?
THE MRS JONES CHAPTER
As I walk into the dressing room, I’m immediately floored by the amount of wall-to-wall designer garb in front of me — the likes of Asanda Madyibi to Amaxhosa. Minnie and the fashion team are zipping, pulling and adjusting look after look. Upon noticing that Minnie is not wearing her wedding
It’s one thing to work with someone, but when you buy into their vision and commit to making their dream work, then it makes it really special.
band, I jokingly ask about its whereabouts. Her response is short, as she sizes herself up in front of the mirror: “I didn’t want the shoot to be about the ring!” At our sit-down a few days later, one of the questions on my list is about life post marriage. Is it, at all, anything she had envisioned it to be? She leans back, in her seat, with a quiet contemplation: “My life became better after marriage and that’s not to say that there was anything wrong with it before. I feel a lot more secure, I’m more focused and driven.” Glimpses of her growth and maturity are evident in how she answers from a reflective place, often quoting the few valuable lessons she has learnt along the way. She, further, explains how living in the limelight and being a household brand often means that everything revolves around you. Marriage, she says, has forced her to be mindful of the next person.
Having only ‘met’ Minnie’s other half on their wedding docu-series and social media, I’m curious to hear if he’s keen on playing in the limelight. While answering my question, Minnie fights the urge to blush. “In all honesty, we’re still figuring out that aspect. He still hates everything to do with the limelight. So I try keep him away from it as much as possible. But, if it’s something’s really important to me, he steps out of his shell to support me.”
Minnie owns Beautiful Day Productions, a production house behind shows like Becoming Mrs Jones and Spirit of Mzansi. The company also produces digital content for big brands like DSTV and Jaguar (outside of her endorsement deal). Minnie is the creative and all-round visionary of her company, while Mr Jones plays the operations and managing director roles — basically handling the finer details of production crews, shoots and editing. “It’s one thing to work with someone, but when you buy into their vision and commit to making their dream work, then it makes it really special. And I’m just as willing to build his. That’s the dream!”
Minnie attributes her healthy outlook on marriage to her parents, whom she says have set an exceptional example of how to coexist as husband and wife. She also admits to trying as best as she can to emulate them. I quiz her further on what she has learnt in the past two years of marriage and she bursts into laughter before answering, “That your wife is always right — jokes!” She, once again, waxes lyrical about how marriage has taught her to compromise and not always have things her way. While changing from one art piece to another, Minnie tip toes past me to fetch something from across the room. She’s lost quite a bit of weight but is still curvy and built for the gods. “You’ve lost weight,” I blurt out to which she responds radiantly, “Thank you.” At this point, I’m conflicted about delving into the fat-shaming and pregnancy rumours that did their rounds on social media almost a year after her marriage — but, I take my chance anyway. “There was nothing much I could do. I got married, got very happy and gained weight — I was in a good space,” she explains gracefully.
Minnie adds that she found the weight and pregnancy comments gravely insensitive. “People can be really mean and forget that we have feelings too. No-one wants to be told they’re pregnant when they aren’t. I’m currently pouring all my energy into my career and growing my businesses — I don’t want to lose momentum. It’s not like I’d be able to hide a pregnancy forever. When the time is right and by God’s grace if I am blessed to have children, people will know.”
BIG CAREER MOVES
We loaded the game-drive vehicle with the set looks as well as hair and make-up artillery, in preparation for moving from one location to the next. Yes, this meant that Minnie had to change outfits in the middle of the wilderness, most times, with just a gown to cover her. Minnie’s skin glow radiates through the pictures begging me to ask about one of her biggest career moves yet, the launch of her body care range MD Body Skincare.
From working with a dermatologist to develop the formula, scent and ingredients, Minnie explains that the brand took five long years to birth and also exposed her to the ins and outs of the beauty industry. Sharing her biggest inspiration for going into the beauty industry, she candidly explains: “I’d been looking to land a beauty deal, for the longest of time. I remember pitching over and over again and being told that budgets were either tight or I wasn’t the perfect fit. At that moment, I realised I could either sit and wait for things to happen or get my hands dirty and do it myself. I decided not to wait for the big beauty houses to decide if I was worthy enough for their products.”
The launch of MD Body Skincare not only showed Minnie’s determination to run in her own lane, but also served as a reminder of her seamless transition from young TV presenter to a fully-fledged businesswoman. Her beauty products, she says, flew off Clicks shelves when they
were first launched. And her latest coup is that the range will be available at Shoprite stores nationwide from the end of February — a much bigger reach than she had even envisioned.
Minnie went from presenting Live! to acting in renowned series like The Wild and Rockville much to the amusement of many. But what most don’t know is that she’s a trained actress and was one of the top-performing students in Speech and Drama in her matric year, with a 100% pass mark. “I loved drama and when I eventually decided on an area of study at the University of Cape Town, it became the obvious choice,” she shares. But that was obviously short-lived when she won the Live! presenter search competition and moved to Joburg. “I, especially, miss acting every time this conversation comes up,” she shares. Those who miss Minnie’s presence outside of sports will be happy to know that she has a few exciting acting projects lined up, billed to launch at the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. “Acting is incredibly time-consuming and with all my other responsibilities, I can’t commit to anything long format. I’m always happy to take on projects that fit into my tight schedule.”
At our initial creative meeting, Minnie was accompanied by a reserved gentleman, whom she introduced as Maphe Dlamini — her brother and new manager. “Bringing Maphe on board was the best decision I’ve ever made. As my older brother, his natural instinct is to protect and look out for me,” she says, also stating that she regrettably had horrific experiences with management in the past. “Trust has become an important trait for me when choosing the teams I work with. I know people usually advise against mixing family and business, but the truth is Minnie Dlamini and Beautiful Day Productions are family-run businesses. Coming out of my experiences what I needed, more than anything, was someone I could completely trust — and that’s not something you can buy.”
Backed by a team that she can completely rely on, she now confidently focuses on implementing her massive 2020 broadcasting vision. From producing some exciting shows — where she’ll be both in front and behind the camera— to Multichoice helping her realise her dream of an all-female production team on one of her future shows, 2020 is set to be one for the books for Minnie. “I love wearing two different hats and deciding when to merge them,” she enthuses.
ON THE PERSONAL FRONT
At each location Minnie purposefully contorts her body to get the perfect frame and doesn’t tire as the photographer (and a fellow perfectionist), Judd Van Rensburg screams directions. He and Minnie made the perfect team. Throughout the shoot, I look for signs of a grieving Minnie — the one who’s been openly posting about the untimely loss of her younger brother, Khosini Dlamini. But there’s nothing that gives off her current frame of mind, except her gameface and determination to make this the best shoot ever. Prior to the interview, Minnie resolutely stated, via her PR manager, that her younger brother’s untimely passing last year was out of bounds but agreed to answer everything else.
On how far she’s come since her early days and how she felt about once being pitted up against other female celebrities, she assertively breaks it down like so: “You enter the industry at a young age, doing any and everything that is thrown your way, trying to figure things out and find your niche and lane in the process — fortunately I found mine in sports. I got into sports, not to emulate what every other female sports presenter had done but to carve my niche. I chose to go the sportainment route.” She explains that most sports shows were very clinical, whereas sportainment fuses sports with lifestyle, which gives the show a glossy feel. Homeground, the sportainment show she currently co-presents with Lungile Radu, is the only show simulcasted on Supersport and Mzansi Magic and its the biggest on the continent.
As the sun sets behind the koppies, the whole crew scrambles around panicking about getting the final shot. When the photographer finally announces that “it’s a wrap”, contentment sweeps over Minnie’s face, almost as though this was the shoot of her dreams. She sums it up like this, “In June this year, I’ll be celebrating 10 years in the entertainment industry and I’m also turning 30. I’m hitting a lot of milestones in 2020 which I’m looking forward to.”
*Two weeks before the magazine went to print, the team and I struggled to select one image that would make a strong cover option. The two images that stood out ended on a 50/50 standoff. Emailing the images to Minnie didn’t help either as she was also torn between both images. After some back and forth, our deputy editor jokingly suggested that we print two covers. Later that evening, I braved it all and asked the powers that be. Now, you get to enjoy two printed versions of our February 2020 cover — a first in TRUE LOVE history. Choose your fave and follow the conversation on our social media platforms using #Kethoyithengayo or #Kethoyithandayo
In June this year, I’ll be celebrating 10 years in the entertainment industry and I’m also turning 30. I’m hitting a lot of milestones in 2020 which I’m looking forward to.