Bonang Matheba issues letter of demand to vlogger over 'defamatory' drug claims

Media personality Bonang Matheba has served a letter of demand through her lawyers against vlogger Rea Gopane over “defamatory statements” he made about her last week. 

Rea Gopane, who is a co-founder of an entertainment vlog called Everything SA Music, published a video in which he alleged that another well-known media personality told him that Bonang - who previously dated rapper AKA - allegedly introduced the musician to drugs. 

The allegations came in the wake of viral video footage, which led to speculation around violence in rapper AKA and his late fiancée Anele Tembe's relationship. 

Taking to Twitter, Bonang said that after being made aware of Rea's vlog, her legal team tried several avenues to serve him with a letter of demand but were unsuccessful. 

Bonang’s attorney issued a cease and desist to Rea on Twitter, instructing him to remove the clip and issue a public apology to the House of BNG owner. This approach, according to B's attorney Thomson Wilks, was not met with any action. Instead, Rea “went into public hiding and refused to either respond to messages or calls”.

This resulted in Bonang taking to Twitter on Sunday to ask for Rea's e-mail address on the TL.

After tagging Rea in her tweets, the vlogger responded with a cheeky tweet.

Bonang then resorted to sharing the letter of demand on Twitter and tagged Rea.

The letter states that Rea has until 4pm on Monday to accede to Bonang’s demand for a public apology and recant all defamatory allegations placed against her, or face Bonang in a court of law.

“My instruction is to invite you to mitigate your unlawful conduct and provide an immediate apology and unconditional retraction, which should be in writing and published on your various platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter,” read part of the letter.

She additionally demanded that the vlogger must pay a sum of R500,000 in damages within 10 days.

“To this end, I am instructed to demand from you R500 000 within 10 days. Should this sum not be paid within the prescribed time, I have instructions to issue summons without further notice to you. Please provide your physical address to avoid summons being served via Facebook and/or Instagram,” Thomson said.

Read the full letter of demand below:

TshisaLIVE reached out to Rea for comment but the vlogger had not responded by the time of publishing this article.