Mzansi pokes holes in Somizi's response to 'show theft' claims

Social media users have dissected Somizi Mhlongo's response to intellectual property theft accusations levelled against him and can't ignore the glaring holes. 

Somizi has been accused of “stealing” the idea for his cooking show, Dinner at Somizi's, which airs on ShowMax and 1Magic. Screenshots of e-mails allegedly sent by producer Hastings Moeng to Somizi in 2014, which detailed striking similarities for a cooking reality show, went viral last week.

The star initially conducted an Instagram Live session, where he admitted to knowing Hastings but claimed not to have opened the e-mails sent to him. Somizi rubbished the intellectual property theft accusations, explaining that he's not the first person to come out with a reality cooking show. 

At the weekend, Somizi landed himself on the Twitter trends after an interview he did with Newzroom Afrika went viral. 

Watch the full interview below.

In one particular clip, Somizi said he's never seen any documents from Hastings.

“I only spoke to him once. I think it was in 2013, not 2014. He told me he wants us to do a cooking show (called) “Dinner with Somizi”, or something like that. But I have never seen any documents.

“It came as a shock that he sent me e-mails, which I don't dispute but I've never opened documents or read an e-mail. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not an e-mail person, I don't even have - I started having an e-mail again probably two months ago after like five years of not having e-mails. I've got a management team that deals with anything that has to do with e-mails, so if he says he sent it to my personal e-mail, I never opened it,” he said.

Somizi reiterated that the cooking show idea, for him, only came after the initial lockdown and that he didn't even connect it to the idea Hastings had pitched back in 2013. 

Social media users compared Somizi's comments in the interview to the Instagram Live he did last week, where he claimed to have seen the e-mail but didn't open it. He also didn't speak about having a verbal discussion with Hastings. 

Here are some of the reactions from people on Twitter to the interview.