Anele Mdoda defends her statement about celebs being 'forced' to speak out

“You're not getting me. I am saying if I am not mentally fit to take on a fight, why am I being shamed into weighing in?” Anele asked.

16 April 2021 - 15:00 By chrizelda kekana
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Anele Mdoda explained why celebs being forced to speak out on certain issues is an act of bullying on their fans' part.
Anele Mdoda explained why celebs being forced to speak out on certain issues is an act of bullying on their fans' part.
Image: Via Real Talk with Anele/YouTube

Even though it rubbed some people up the wrong way, Anele Mdoda is standing firm on her view that celebrities should not be “forced” to speak out on trending socio-economic issues. 

Anele landed on the Twitter trends list for hours after she seemingly defended Siv Ngesi against tweeps who expected more action from him as a self-proclaimed LGBTQI+ ally. This as the calls for #JusticeForLulu and #JusticeForSpha, whose murders were believed to have been fuelled by homophobia, grew louder on the TL.

Anele believes that celebrities — no matter what kind of activists they proclaim to be —  shouldn't be summoned to speak out on matters they chose to blue tick. 

If you want to make a statement, by all means. If you want to keep quiet, that is fine too. What you can't do is bully people into making a statement,” Anele wrote. “The bullying you speak of so much on this app, that's it. You really want to believe Twitter is different from society.”

Tweeps assumed Anele was defending Siv with the statement. 

After hogging the trends list for hours, Anele returned to the TL to cement her views.

Celebrities can do very little to change behaviour. Even government will struggle to change people's behaviour.”

Anele added that tweeps didn't consider how certain issues personally affected a celebrity.

“I am saying if I am not mentally fit to take on a fight, why am I being shamed into weighing in. Surely keeping quiet until I know my words will be helpful can't be a bad thing. Why must I just talk? And why talk when I know talking is all I can contribute?” Anele explained.

The 947 radio presenter urged tweeps to take into account that artist have had it hard in the wake of Covid-19 and its subsequent lockdowns. She added that many artists were hanging by a thread as far as their mental health was concerned.

Read her tweets below:


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