Tragedy has a way of striking at the most inopportune moment. The death of Goldie on Valentine’s Day painted gloom on celebville across Africa with the consequent marriage claims creating mystery around a pop star we thought we knew so well. Giving an account of his personal encounter with her, Stevens Muendo unveils to you the Prezzo-Goldie secrets you probably didn’t know
On a cold August 5 (2012) night, I and nine other entertainment writers from across Africa were ushered into the Sasani Studios in Randburg, Johannesburg where a select crowd had converged to witness the Big Brother Africa StarGame grand finale.
Kenyan housemate CMB Prezzo had made history, becoming the first Kenyan contestant to make it to the BBA finals, ever. He had professed his love for fellow housemate and singer Goldie, from Nigeria. The move attracted continental buzz.
The passions in their ‘relationship’ had become the driving force of the 90-day reality TV show and on this night, all eyes were on Prezzo — who many believed would take home the Sh25 million winner’s cash prize — and once out, Goldie!
Prezzo and South Africa’s Keagan were the two last men standing and as the event’s moderator waited for the buzz to drop a notch, before announcing the winner — inside the auditorium — tension between South African and Kenyan fans reigned supreme. There, before her man during his defining moment, Goldie buried her head inside her arms, emotional. She was in prayer...silently.
After Keagan was announced the winner, she wept helplessly as she walked to embrace and comfort Prezzo. It was a dull cold night for both.
When all the housemates gathered to meet their fans during the all-night party, Johannesburg’s media spotlight was on the two, who remained hand-in-hand as they fielded Press interviews.
“I am a very simple girl. I was raised in a Christian family and grew up reciting Bible verses in church. My mother was a choir mistress and my dad was a pastor,” Goldie said as I settled for my interview with her.
“I grew up dreaming of becoming a musician but my parents were not really for this because of their religious strictness. That is why it took long for me to become a secular artiste,” she added.
The interview became lively as we talked about her music success and her studies in the United Kingdom, as well as the pertinent issue of the on-and-off love affair with Prezzo during their BBA stay.
Prezzo was by her side, sipping a drink and posing for pictures as a battery of journalists swarmed around us. Occasionally, he would join in the interview.
“Baby, tell him everything. This is my ni**ga,” he would cheer on.
“Are the two of you planning to take this affair beyond TV. Do we expect you in Kenya anytime soon?” I asked.
“Prezzo should tell you if he wants me to come to Kenya. He is the man in this relationship. If he offers me the chance, I will come over,” she said, a witty grin revealing through her lips.
“I love Prezzo and the whole world knows that. We have been discussing on how to take this affair to the next level and only time will tell,” she added before gesturing towards an attentive Prezzo with a nod.
“Goldie is coming to the city in the sun (Nairobi) sooner than you know it. This is a step by step kind of affair. Nairobi is now her other home,” Prezzo remarked. As if to get confirmation from the other, after every answer, they would exchange glances, sometimes breaking into laughter as Prezzo teased Goldie referring to her as “the First Lady”.
Even though most journalists took their confessions with a pinch of salt, anyone who has known Prezzo over the years could tell that the hip-hop star had made up his mind to give Goldie a go.
They had stood against a heavy barrage of continent-wide criticism and self created handles inside the BBA house. They shared a bed for weeks.
They had laughed and cried together. It looked like an affair made for TV yet, away from the viewers, there seemed to be a trace of hope that these two would be an item after BBA.
“I was raised in a humble way and my life is an open book for all. I never have nothing to hide. See you in Nairobi soon. You can call me on my phone whenever you want to ask anything,” Goldie told me before the two left the party together to their hotel room, in the early morning hour.
Simple, humble and transparent girl are not the image BBA viewers knew of Goldie. In fact, they perceived her as a mysterious and multifaceted introvert whose cleverly calculated approach to her fellow housemates baffled many.
We had watched the South-western Nigerian-born turn foes to friends. Friends who had sang praises about her as she entered the BBA house on that Sunday, May 6 night, were now crusading against her, admonishing her as a disgrace to Nigeria.
She didn’t care about all that and, true to her character, her focus remained centred on whatever she believed was right for her — winning Prezzo’s heart.
Even though the two talked about Prezzo’s daughter Zahrie and their past relationships and life experiences, it was only after Prezzo made his visit to Lagos in Nigeria when they shared details about his separation with his wife Daisy Kiplangat.
During the August 2012 visit, it became evident that the two were in love and in another two weeks, Goldie was in Nairobi to visit Prezzo.
Critics still argue that the For Sho 4 Shizzo rapper was merely pushing the relationship to cement his showbiz base in Africa even as he pushed his My City My Town hit single.
However, all that seemed to fizzle out with time as Prezzo pushed the affair further treating Goldie to a leisure tour in the United States where the two attended a Jay Z concert.
“We had been working on the relationship. This wasn’t for show. We travelled across the world and started working on our music projects together even as we discussed our marriage. We were to finalise everything on Valentine’s Day,” a heartbroken Prezzo said last Friday, a day after jetting into Lagos for the couple’s Valentine’s Day date only to get the shocking news that his lover had succumbed to pulmonary embolism (a condition caused by blockage of blood vessels in the lungs causing blood clot). She passed on only hours after arriving from Los Angeles where she had gone to attend the annual Grammy Awards.
And how twisted could it be that love that was brewed in such an unlikely spot, with the whole continent questioning it, would end dramatically and tragically — on a Valentine’s Day.
Like a clip cut from a fiction Hollywood movie, the two celebrities were on separate flights before the sun set on the Nigerian pop star. By the time the Kenyan rapper was arriving in Lagos, Goldie had been pronounced dead.
Even after the nine-month Romeo and Juliet sort of affair had ended with the tragic death of the 31-year-old Nigerian singer (whose real name is Susan Filani), the drama that followed has left the world puzzled.
There was Andrew Harvey, the Briton who brought in a fresh twist to the saga after he published photos of his 2005 wedding with the pop singer — two days after the Thursday night Reddington Hospital, in Victoria Island, Lagos death.
Did she ever tell Prezzo she was married to another man?
Why was he quiet all this time?
Is there something Prezzo knew about Goldie that he didn’t tell the world?
Source:standardmedia.co.ke