Khosi Ngema’s proud dad tells of art imitating life
For actor Mangaliso Ngema seeing his daughter play an abducted child in Blood & Water was like watching his real-life story unfold
IT’S the kind of thing that would be considered too far-fetched, even for a TV series. A daughter presumed to be dead turns out to be alive many years later. A father is thrilled to discover he has a sixth child – then, in a bizarre twist, he and one of his other daughters are both cast in TV shows involving longlost children. For veteran actor Mangaliso Ngema (48) and his daughter, Khosi (20) – star of Netflix’s smash-hit series Blood & Water – this was the stranger-than-fiction situation in which they found themselves.
In Blood & Water, Khosi plays Fikile Bhele, a girl believed to be a child who was abducted from her family at birth. In Mangaliso’s 2018 series Ring of Lies, he played a businessman who was reunited with the daughter he thought had died at birth.
Mangaliso told YOU’s sister magazine Drum in 2018 he’d learnt his eldest daughter, who he believed had died at birth, was in fact still alive – but he still hasn’t been able to trace her.
When Mangaliso and Khosi found out about the plot details of the Netflix show, they were stunned. “I took her to her callback on Blood & Water,” Mangaliso tells us, adding that he doesn’t often sit in on Khosi’s auditions.
“Usually I wait in the car, but this time around, I was like, ‘Let me just go in and see who’s in charge of this production. I want to see if it’s even a real thing’.”
He was introduced to producer and co-director Nosipho Dumisa, who explained the plot of Blood & Water, which involves a teen girl on a mission to find her long-lost sister who was abducted as a baby, who she believes is Fikile. “When I told Nosipho this storyline was just like my real-life story, she started crying.”
Nosipho was so taken by his story, she invited him to audition to play Fikile’s father, the man accused of abducting her
as a baby. But Mangaliso had to decline the offer because of his commitments to the SABC2 series Lithapo.
He admits it was strange for him to have Khosi play the part of an abducted girl. “She’d call me while she was shooting in Cape Town and tell me how strange it was to be in a story like this, which is so close to my real-life story.”
LONG before Mangaliso met his wife, Busisiwe, he fell in love with a Mozambican woman he’d met while she was selling prawns to South African restaurants. Their relationship turned into a long-distance one, with Mangaliso living in Johannesburg and his girlfriend in Mozambique. To protect her privacy, he won’t divulge his ex’s name.
“In 1993 I got a call from Mozambique from the mother of my baby. She told me our baby had passed away right after she gave birth. We were both young, so I accepted what she told me and made peace with it.”
They broke up after the “death” of their baby because the relationship couldn’t take the strain of the loss. They remained friends and stayed in touch over the years. Then, in 2017, he received a call from his ex and what she told him shook him to the core. “She first sent me a text saying, ‘I need to tell you something’.”
The daughter of one of the nurses from the hospital where his child was born had contacted his ex to tell her their baby girl didn’t die, but had been sold to a childless couple.
“The nurse was on her deathbed, and she told her daughter, ‘Listen, I’ve been living with this secret all my life and I don’t want to die with this thing. Please go and find this person and when you find them, tell them this is what was done’.”
They asked for a meeting with the nurse, but it was too late – she’d passed away and her daughter knew little else of what her mom had done.
After the life-changing phone call, Mangaliso says he cried every day.
His ex-girlfriend approached the hospital for help, but Mangaliso says “the hospital doesn’t have a culture of keeping records”. All traces of their child seems to have been buried along with the nurse who allegedly sold her.
The actor longed to find his daughter. “I cried for two weeks straight.”
He later told his wife and five children. “It was difficult, but they were moved by the story.”
He hopes he’ll be able to go to Maputo for a while and hire an investigator to try to find his long-lost child.
KHOSI kept asking her dad to watch Blood & Water with her, as she had access to the series before it began streaming, “but I couldn’t”, Mangaliso says. “Eventually I watched the first three episodes with her, and watched the rest on my own. I cried so much when [the season] ended. I couldn’t stop crying.”
Relatives have been calling him, he says, asking if the series is based on his story.
“After watching it, my aunt SMSed me and said, ‘Manga, what’s going on here? Is this about you?’ I said no, it’s just a pure coincidence.”
The actor is proud of Khosi for following in his footsteps, even if it wasn’t really what he wanted for her.
“Khosi has always had an interest in art and drama, even from a young age. I tried to protect her from this industry, but I could tell that this is where her heart is at. So I let her be.”
A love of the arts runs in the family, as Khosi’s late grandmother, Patience Africa, was also an actress, as well as a singer and songwriter. Khosi was raised by Patience and lived with her until she was in her early teens.
Khosi’s sister Unathi (18) is a dancer; her brother Busani (15) plays the drums; and her youngest brother, Mpange (12), is learning to play the piano. Their eldest sibling prefers not to be named.
“I guess I caught the arts bug from my dad,” Khosi says, adding that acting is what she’s always wanted to do. “My dad has never tried to steer us in a particular direction.”
Khosi won’t be drawn into talking about her missing sister but says she and her other siblings are as thick as thieves.
“We have a great bond. Obviously, siblings sometimes have a love-hate relationship, but I love them to bits. I’d die for them, basically.”
Khosi, emulating her gran, has been writing music during lockdown, and hopes to release a single soon – before going back in front of the cameras for season 2 of Blood & Water.
“We don’t even know what’s happening yet, but we’re really excited.”
‘It was difficult [telling his wife and kids], but they were moved by the story’