Amor: life’s tough as a single mom
Kids’ mishaps, the school run, money worries and ongoing court battles have taken their toll – but Amor hasn’t lost sight of her dreams
EVERYWHERE you look there are soccer boots, sports bags and school books – it’s obvious that life in this stylish home revolves around two super-sporty teenagers. But what’s also clear is that for their single mother it requires an almost superhuman juggling effort to keep everything running like clockwork.
It’s a Sunday afternoon and even though Amor Vittone got home only at 1am after singing her heart out at a music festival, there’s no time to relax. As she gears up to pack lunchboxes and get everything ready for a new school week, she’s fretting about her daughter who’s feeling a bit under the weather.
When we arrive at her home on the Dainfern estate in Johannesburg, Amor (46) has just stepped out of the shower and is blow-drying her hair. Although she’s expertly applied her make-up, there are circles under her eyes. And as she tells us what happened to her daughter, Kylie van der Westhuizen (12), it all comes spilling out – and within moments the bubbly performer is in tears.
Just a day before out interview Amor watched in horror as Kylie fell off her horse, My Pony Z, while competing in the interschool equestrian competition for the Johannesburg district at Kyalami in Midrand.
“It all seemed to happen in slow motion. She misjudged a jump, the horse somersaulted through the air and Kylie went crashing to the ground.
“When I ran to her on the field, she said, ‘I want my mommy’.” As Kylie lay motionless the moments ticked by like hours for Amor.
“I just prayed. ‘Please, Lord, let my child just get up from here’,” Amor recalls.
Luckily Kylie wasn’t seriously injured but the incident left her mom shaken – so much so that she cancelled a radio interview she’d scheduled for that afternoon so she could keep an eye on Kylie. But she’d been booked to perform at a festival in Thabazimbi, Limpopo, that night – the show had to go on.
“There I was singing and really all I wanted was to be with my child,” she says.
Luckily she knew her children were in good hands while she was on stage. Her parents, Dario (77) and Delyse Vittone (69), were there to look after them. Even so, it’s clear all the stress and worry of being a single mom has taken its toll.
“One human being can take only so much,” Amor says. “I’m so worn out. Every day I’m just waiting for another bomb to explode.”
Yet she still went to watch Jordan play on the day of our interview.
THE singer is chatting to us in the main bedroom of the house, hairdryer still in hand. She’s recently traded her golden locks for a soft cinnamon brown ’do. “I wanted to get back to a more natural look and to my Italian roots. As they say, a change is as good as a holiday,” she quips.
Amor was pleased when her son, Jordan (14), gave her new look his stamp of approval. “Oh Mommy, I like the darker hair,” he told her. Amor says she was surprised because Jordan usually likes blondes.
Kylie was still headachy this morning from yesterday’s drama and spent most of the day in bed. While we talk she and her brother are relaxing in the lounge with their nonno (Italian for grandfather). Amor says he and gran Delyse are the glue that keeps everything together.
She says she spends her days rushing from Jordan’s soccer tournaments to Kylie’s horse-riding contests while trying to squeeze in her own career commitments. Some mornings she’s still in her pyjamas or tracksuit, sunglasses slapped onto her make-up-free face and hair in a messy ponytail, as she races to get her kids to their separate schools on time.
“Mommy, please wear make-up and heels when you come to fetch me from school,” Jordan often complains.
And then on top of all this there’s the stress of the court battle over the estate of her estranged late husband, rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen, who died of motor neurone disease last year.
The couple, who were married in community of property, had their ups and downs but never formally divorced. And while the legal wheels turn slowly over his contested will, Amor is having sleepless nights about how she’ll afford a new hearing device her son needs.
Jordan, who plays for the under-14 Gauteng district soccer team and dreams of being a sporting hero like his dad, was diagnosed with hearing problems early in life and received a cochlear implant when he was 10.
“He wants to be goalkeeper for Liverpool one day,” Amor says proudly.
The new electronic device, which apparently runs on rechargeable batteries, costs more than R100 000. It has a more natural sound and will make Jordan’s hearing sharper.
But now Amor is locked in two high court cases with Joost’s family.
Last month she was successful in removing Joost’s brothers – Pieter and Gustav – and one of his closest friends, Gavin Varejes of SA Rugby Legends, as trustees of Joost’s J9 Trust, of which her kids are beneficiaries. But the trustees are appealing the court decision.
Meanwhile Amor is preparing to take them on in another case which is due to start soon in the high court in Pretoria. It centres on who inherits the lion’s share of Joost’s estate.
Pieter and Ferdi Hartzenberg, Joost’s lawyer, have applied for an order to declare Joost’s alleged final 2015 will (in which he bequeaths everything including the J9 trust to his children) as valid, while Amor is arguing that in terms of a 2009 will she’s the sole heir of Joost’s estate. Both sides argue they’re acting in the best interests of the kids.
WITH everything that’s happened over the past 18 months, Amor hasn’t had time to mourn Joost, to whom she was married for 15 years. But she did write him a song, Ek Mis Jou (I Miss You). Symbolically it’s the ninth track on her new album, Ek Bly Net ’n Ma (I’m Still Just a Mom) – Joost wore the No 9 jersey when he played for the Boks.
“I know he loved his children. Not for a minute would he have approved of what’s going on now,” she says, referring to her ongoing court battle with his family.
“I just want this whole thing to be finished now. I just want to look after my children and get on with my life.”
Despite everything, Amor hasn’t lost sight of her dreams. She says she’d like to present a TV programme again.
This month she’ll be shooting the kykNET show Dans in Jou Taal (Dance in Your Language), which will air later this year, and there’s talk that she may return to Afrikaans soapie 7de Laan as Zelda, the controversial sister of Mariaan Welman (Deirdre Wolhuter). And could see herself dating again? “Yes, you do miss having someone who can listen,” Amor says wistfully. “Someone who can make you a cup of tea after a long day.”
But she quickly adds that she has neither the time nor the energy to go looking for romance.
Right now her kids are enough. Besides, after all she’s been through it will be hard for her to trust in love again, she says.
“I’ve built a house with all the stones that I’ve had thrown at me,” she says. “I’m safe in there.”