Watching the “love story” of Anele Tembe and, AKA, real name Kiernan Forbes, come to a tragic end with both their untimely deaths was a traumatic experience for many South Africans. Reliving it in Melinda Ferguson’s When Love Kills: The Tragic Tale of AKA and Anele was even harder…
While many idolised the glamorous couple behind closed doors, their romance was filled with reports of toxic jealousy, obsession, infidelity, and domestic abuse.
With South Africa’s gender-based violence epidemic, it’s a story we’ve heard many times before…
‘WHEN LOVE KILLS’: ANELE TEMBE AND AKA’S STORY THAT WE DIDN’T SEE
Melinda Ferguson released When Love Kills in the midst of Anele Tembe’s inquest and the arrest of seven suspects charged with the murder of AKA.
While the timing and nature of the celebrity story – told through the author’s eyes – was likely insensitive, it was one that the world needed to hear.
For many fans, AKA and Anele were madly in love and ready to start their next chapter – marriage and starting a family. But out of the public eye, the couple reportedly had numerous explosive fights filled with rage, violence, power play, and possibly substance abuse.
According to the author, the couple often filmed each other in compromising positions as a means to assert control over each other.
When a clip of Anele screaming, “You don’t know what he’s doing to me,” hit social media, fans were floored. According to Melinda and those close to Anele, there were many, many more of those moments that the public did not know about.
In the lead-up to Anele Tembe’s fatal fall on 11 April 2021 at the Pepperclub Hotel, the couple were outwardly celebrating their recent lobola negotiations and traditionally becoming husband and wife. Inwardly, they were reportedly battling regular break-ups, trashing rooms, allegedly assaulting each other, making numerous suicide threats, and possibly indulging in substances together.
Melinda Ferguson writes of the couple: “Perhaps they’d drunk the Kool-Aid and ignored all the danger signs. They were so caught up with being in love and seduced by the flawlessly fiiltered image that they presented that they lost perspective as they tumbled into a twisted tunnel of obsession. There appeared to be no escape…”
GLAMORISING ABUSE
Pop culture has desensitised – and even glamorised abuse on many fronts.
In interviews, couples are often asked: “What’s your favourite toxic trait?”. Movies like 50 Shades and 360 Days often make toxic masculinity and abuse look attractive.
In the South African entertainment industry, star couples like Lorch and Natasha Thahane or Babes Wodumo and Mampintsha have the public quickly sweeping any signs of abuse under the carpet.
When Love Kills documents AKA and Anele Tembe’s romance as a “can’t live with or without you”, trauma bond kind of relationship. Melinda uses the analogy that the talented rapper and his beautiful young bride were a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.
According to AKA himself, their relationship was “passionate,” and they both were “stubborn.”
But when does passion cross the line, becoming an obsession, dangerous and toxic?
As the title suggests, love – or what it’s perceived to be – can actually kill…
SA HAS THE HIGHEST RATE OF GBV
According to a report by the United Nations, South Africa has the highest rate of gender-based violence or femicide in the world.
The regulatory body references an official SA report that claims that one in five women experience abuse at the hands of their partner.
According to GBV activists Women For Change, 13 women were murdered every day in the country during October and December 2023, according to SAPS crime states. The organisation claims that 4,264 suspects were arrested for GBV-related crimes such as rape and sexual assault, but only 586 rapists were convicted during this period.
They estimate that, shockingly, 95% of rape cases are not reported in SA.
Whether you believe that AKA and Anele Tembe had a toxic love story or not, their relationship was filled with red flags they foolishly ignored. When Love Kills should be heeded as a warning to others that tragedy can strike when mental health, substance use, and losing sight of reality go unchecked.
