Miss Smoooth Moves
We spun the wheel on Rorisang Thandekiso for some true fan facts from Tropika Smoooth Fan.
Tropika Smoooth Fan Season 1 Fridays SABC1 (*191) 18:00
How well do you know your favourite celebs? In that sweet spot between casual fan and outright stalker, we have the “number one fan”. And every Friday, show host Rorisang Thandekiso puts four of these super-fans to the test to find out how much they know about their socalled favourite star in the gameshow Tropika Smoooth Fan (2018- current). She cheers everyone along until they lose their shyness. “TV is a scary space and the atmosphere is intimidating. I feel like I am the biggest Beyoncé fan but if I was two metres away from Beyoncé and someone was asking me questions about Beyoncé, I would be a wreck,” Rorisang sympathises. It’s no wonder the show’s producers had her at the top of their list for the job. “The brand expressed interest in me and I met with various marketing personnel and heads of departments. It was more of a conversation where they went into the work that I did. They liked my spirit when I am on live television,” reveals Rorisang. And being Rorisang fans ourselves, we leapt at the chance to ask her a couple of questions.
What was one of your most intense moments as a presenter on youth show YO.TV (1996-current)? Between 2008 (when I was 17) and 2013, it was hosting Blue Couch. I was like a little Oprah. We discussed important topics like sex, puberty, bipolar disorder and divorce. There was no playing down these topics. That stretched me as both a presenter and a person. YO.TV even needed to give me a psychologist because I was inundated with children reaching out to me, personally telling me they wanted to commit suicide or that they were pregnant or that exams are hard. It was tough but rewarding. What might people not realise about all the work that you put into hosting live breakfast show Mzansi Insider (2010-current)? Call time is 04:00 and we wrap around 15:00. I have a-12 hour day every Saturday and people don’t realise that we pre-record two episodes before we go live on Saturday. I also assist with content around the show. What would only a true Rorisang fan know about you? I was a presenter on Good Morning Africa (2010- current), which was a morning show in West Africa, as well as on another West African TV channel named PRTV. What’s been one of your favourite real-life fan encounters? This is a special one – I was speaking at a Graca Michel and a Nelson Mandela’s Children Fund lunch. After my talk, I walked past a table filled with a group of grannies over the age of 70. They called me by my name and forced me to speak Sesotho because that’s what they’ve seen me speak on TV. I had to greet each one the South African way by kissing every granny at the table. They spoke a word of blessing over my life. They wanted nothing more than an interaction because they recognised my work. A photo wasn’t important to them. They treated me like a grandchild. What is the most blush-worthy picture of little Rorisang in your family’s photo collection? We went to a wedding and I decided that I wanted to hijack the position of the flower girl. So there I was creeping into every photograph that eventually the bride and groom just went with it. I would have been so mad if a strange little girl took over my wedding photos. Who are you a Smoooth Fan of and what is the nosiest thing that you know about them? I am the Smoothest Fan of the late Akhumzi Jezile (1989-2018, a fellow YO.TV presenter). I always admired him and he later became a really good friend. The nosiest thing I knew about him was that he colour coded things in his house. He really had a thing for making sure colours stayed together. I miss him a lot.