5 top SA sportsmen whose marriages hit the rocks

22 February 2015 - 02:00 By Suthentira Govender
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Jonty Rhodes, Kate Johns and Jacques Kallis during the Cricket SA and Mutual & Federal Annual 2007/2008 season launch held at the Wanderers Ballroom in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Jonty Rhodes, Kate Johns and Jacques Kallis during the Cricket SA and Mutual & Federal Annual 2007/2008 season launch held at the Wanderers Ballroom in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Cricketing hero Graeme Smith joins a long line of sportsmen whose marriages have failed. There have been drugs, there has been sex, and in many cases, other women too. Suthentira Govender looks at some high-profile break-ups.

Jonty Rhodes

The cricket legend has had a complicated love life.

After 15 years of marriage to Kate McCarthy, the mother of his two children, Rhodes decided to terminate the relationship in 2009. They were divorced in 2013.

Rhodes proposed to his love interest at the time, Caroline McClelland, only to dump her later for Melanie Wolf, an architect.

 

Doctor Khumalo

The Kaizer Chiefs assistant coach and former soccer heart-throb is going through a divorce from Blanche, his wife of eight years.

Blanche has claimed Doctor was emotionally abusive and cheated on her. He refused to comment on the allegations.

It has been reported that Blanche demanded R30000 a month for herself and a monthly payment of R15000 for their child.

 

Herschelle Gibbs

The cricketer ended his short, rocky marriage to part-time model Tenielle Povey a year after they tied the knot in 2007.

In his biography To the Point, Gibbs admitted that he should never have married.

While playing in the Indian Premier League in 2008, Gibbs sent Povey a text message saying they should go their separate ways.

The couple were divorced and Gibbs paid off her new car and gave her R550000 in cash as part of the settlement.

Gibbs insisted he never cheated on Povey before they married - "not technically, anyway" - but wrote that he did once try to kiss model Minki van der Westhuizen in front of his wife. Things started to unravel when a "pissed" Gibbs pulled out Povey's hair on their way home from a cousin's wedding.

At the time of the messy divorce, it was reported that Povey had instituted divorce proceedings as she had had enough of his drinking.

 

Benni McCarthy

The retired soccer star split up with his Spanish sweetheart, Maria Jose-Santos, in 2007.

The former Orlando Pirates and Blackburn Rovers player took the plunge again last year with Scottish model Stacey Munro.

McCarthy told the Sunday Times in 2011 that Jose-Santos, the mother of his three daughters, had not wanted to leave Spain, which caused tension in their marriage.

 

Joost van der Westhuizen

South Africa's equivalent of Posh and Becks, the former Springbok captain and Amor Vittone saw their marriage crumble after his sex tape surfaced in 2009.

Van der Westhuizen at first denied that it was him on the tape .

But when Marilize van Emmenis identified herself as the blonde in the footage, he admitted the truth.

The admission brought an end to what many had believed was a fairytale marriage.

 

Mark Fish

The 11-year marriage of Mark and Loui Fish - once regarded as the golden couple of the local soccer world - ended in divorce in 2011.

Loui painted a scandalous picture of her former Bafana Bafana star husband in her autobiography Walking in My Choos, in which she told of Fish's sex romps and his insatiable appetite for strip clubs and drugs.

Apart from branding him a philanderer, Loui, a former lingerie model, also claimed in divorce papers that he abused her physically and emotionally.

Mark hit back, claiming Loui often had boyfriends sleep over at their Pretoria home.

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