Dumisani Dlamini responds to claims he's never met his famous daughter, Doja Cat

Dumisani Dlamini has responded to his daughter's claim that she has never met him, claiming that he had been trying to get in touch with her for years.

US musician Doja Cat got tongues wagging this week when she opened up about never meeting her father, SA actor Dumisani Dlamini, in a short chat with Whoopi Goldberg.

A clip of their conversation surfaced online this week and was shared widely on social media. In it, Doja told Whoopi that her father played alongside the veteran actress in Sarafina! Whoopi was surprised by the news and nodded in sadness when Doja said she had never met Dumisani.

“Yeah isn’t that crazy. And I didn’t get to meet him but you did,” Doja said.

Whoopi said the actor was “a good man”.

Responding to the clip, Dumisani told Metro FM's Mo Flava that he had also been trying to find his daughter.

“I have been looking for my daughter as well. You mustn't forget these Americans. Americans will always want to have something to cause a stir, so that she stays in the media and is talked about around the world.”

He said Doja's management had blocked all his efforts to reach out to her and suggested that it may be because they feared losing her.

“I have tried to search for my baby and the company that runs her entertainment has been blocking me. They know that if I could get hold of her, maybe she will disappear from the picture ... I know my daughter, wherever she is, is looking for me.”

He seemed to later U-turn on his comments and said that his daughter had spoken to him before becoming famous, and suggested that her claims to Whoopi may have been “a made up thing”.

“She got hold of me. We spoke. We connected. Now, at this time when she is there and on top, she has to grab the whole world['s attention], especially in SA because she is a South African and her daddy is here. It's a made up thing”.

Dumisani told TshisaLIVE three years ago that after the Sarafina! tour wrapped up he decided to stay in America and fell in love with a Jewish-American woman. They started a family and had two kids, one of them became Doja Cat.

After staying in America for more than 15 years, he felt homesick and returned to SA with a plan to bring his family over.

While it didn’t all go according to plan, Dumisani claimed that he had a close relationship with all of his children.

“I am close to my kids, all of them. I love them and they love me.”