I became an Iyanla Vanzant overnight: Lebo Keswa turns fame into business

Lebo Keswa's failed relationship with actress Letoya Makhene might have gone down as one of the messiest splits in celebville, but the entrepreneur is looking to make lemonade from lemons. 

Weeks after officially announcing her split from her longtime partner, Lebo candidly spoke to TshisaLIVE and other platforms about what she claims she endured in her marriage laced with abuse, drugs and infidelity — this was dubbed her 'break-up tour'. 

It was her sit-down on the 'Engineer Your Life' podcast in particular — which is at nearly a million views — that shot her up the trends lists.

Phrases such as 'a whole me', 'f*cked up', 'umgowo' as well as her talking about how she hadn't bought underwear during their relationship had her being talked about and memes of her being created so now she wants to capitalise on her social media fame.

The businesswoman has unveiled a range of branded merchandise.

The T-shirts, which are part of the first range, cost R200 and tracksuits, shorts and caps are set to follow.

“In everything that I have gone through, I had to employ the services of a PR firm and a publicist. Going through what I am going through with a celebrity, if I had it my way we could have parted ways amicably but she decided that she was going to go dirty,” she told TshisaLIVE. 

“Everything that has happened was strategic from my PR side. The Umgowo thing was started by PR but we didn't know it was going to blow up like this. We then thought to leverage off it. This is a business opportunity. It trended for over a week.”

This is all while she gears up for the debut episode of her podcast. 

“This is how the podcast came about. From the inboxes that I got, people said that I had gone through similar things and thanked me for speaking out because I had given them a voice. I became an Iyanla Vanzant overnight.”