Snippets from a stormy relationship ...

Joost versus Kurt

Gavin Prins recounts a tequila-soaked outing he spent at a South African Music Awards nomination ceremony in the company of Amor and Afrikaans pop star Kurt Darren, before the sex-tape scandal broke. A tipsy Amor then chatted on the phone to Joost, who soon phoned Prins, asking the journalist to make sure his wife got home safely.

Then Darren also phoned Prins, saying he should go home and that he (Darren) would look after Amor. Prins reported this to Joost, who was none too pleased.

This is what happened next, writes Prins (based on what he claims Joost and Amor later told him):

"Joost had arrived at his house in his Nissan Navara. The balcony in front of the sitting room was in darkness. When he opened the gate with the remote and roared into the driveway, Kurt and Amor suddenly appeared out of the darkness on the balcony. Joost jumped out of his bakkie, yelling and red in the face. He was in a blind rage as he raced into the house.

'What are you up to?' he asked Kurt. 'What's the problem?' Kurt wanted to know. 'You want to f***ing screw my wife, you bastard!' said Joost, and punched Kurt in the chest. 'Excuse me, buddy. You were the one who asked me to look after your wife,' said Kurt.

'Why did you tell Gavin to go home then? Hey?' demanded Joost. And he grabbed Kurt by the arm, shoving him out through the front door and down the steps.

Kurt stumbled, lost his balance and fell against the wall. Kurt and Amor both insisted she had simply been showing him round the house and that the servants had still been around when Joost showed up. Joost did not believe the story."

When Amor found out

AMOR Vittone was preparing for a live performance at the Morula Sun when she was told about the sex-tape story: "'Gav, what's going on?' Amor was crying as she spoke.

'Why do they want to publish that rubbish? I have to go on stage now-now. I can't think straight. I have to remember the words of my songs. And I can't. What if I faint? What then?'

'I don't know what to say,' I told her.

'Is it really Joost in the video?' she wanted to know. She was sobbing like a child.

'My darling, I saw the video and it is him.'

'Gav, how can you be sure? Just now you told Joost that you weren't a hundred percent certain.'

She was still crying. The phone went dead."

A touch of self-doubt

PRINS recalls his thoughts when instructed by his editors in February 2009 to report the sex-tape revelation, despite his friendship with Amor and Joost: "I did so wish everything was different.

"But if I didn't write the story myself, I could not claim to be a professional journalist. And I was a journalist, after all.

"Joost and Amor had used me so often in the past, I reasoned. But I still felt awful."

And after the news was published: "That Sunday I began to think, wonder and doubt. Not about whether it was Joost in the video, but about whether I had done the right thing by writing the story. Why had I not passed the story on to a colleague?

"But I was the hero; the reporter who had broken the news about one of our greatest scandals, thanks to a hand-me-down from the magazine Heat.

"But at what cost?"

The birthday breakdown

"THE wine flowed and they enjoyed a good laugh. Joost was his old self again, cracking jokes and telling stories. Then it was time to open presents. Joost opened the gift from the children and then the one from Amor. The gift from his wife, her passport, made him catch his breath because of what was written inside: Amor van der Westhuizen. Not Vittone. Van der Westhuizen.

Joost was so worried he would burst into tears that he quickly hugged her. Sometimes I wonder whether I deserve you, he thought to himself. Here he was on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the country because of an alleged sex scandal, and his wife had had her passport issued with his surname in it. Proudly.

They sang Happy Birthday to Joost. But the singing stirred up too many emotions in him. He got up, walked quickly to the tree in the middle of the garden and started to cry uncontrollably. Suddenly everything went quiet ... The video, the media, the public: everything had simply become too much for the Springbok hero."

"THE wine flowed and they enjoyed a good laugh. Joost was his old self again, cracking jokes and telling stories. Then it was time to open presents. Joost opened the gift from the children and then the one from Amor. The gift from his wife, her passport, made him catch his breath because of what was written inside: Amor van der Westhuizen. Not Vittone. Van der Westhuizen.

Joost was so worried he would burst into tears that he quickly hugged her. Sometimes I wonder whether I deserve you, he thought to himself. Here he was on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the country because of an alleged sex scandal, and his wife had had her passport issued with his surname in it. Proudly.

They sang Happy Birthday to Joost. But the singing stirred up too many emotions in him. He got up, walked quickly to the tree in the middle of the garden and started to cry uncontrollably. Suddenly everything went quiet ... The video, the media, the public: everything had simply become too much for the Springbok hero."