Crushed By Tragedy

Actress Baby Cele shares her pain over losing her sister and nephew in an alleged murder-suicide

- Qhama Dayile

She had big plans for 2020. Following her show-stopping wedding last year, Baby Cele looked forward to a sun-soaked honeymoon with her new hubby.

The actress, who has branched out into production, had also planned to promote her new film, but then Covid-19 happened and everything had to be put on hold.

Just as she was getting to grips with life under lockdown, another disaster struck. Baby was dealt a terrible blow when she lost two relatives recently. In April, her beloved sister Norah was killed, allegedly at the hands of Norah’s son, Mbuso. The family is still battling to come to terms with the tragedy.

“This has been a very difficult time for us,” Baby tells DRUM.

“Mbuso was okay, he had a job and seemed fine. It didn’t make sense to us why he would do such a thing,” she says.

According to reports, Mbuso – who had been suffering from depression – shot his mother before injuring his wife, Zanele. The women had apparently refused to go for a drive with him when he turned a gun on them.

Zanele (35) survived the shooting but Norah (72) died at the scene.

Mbuso (37) fled in his car and was later found in Amanzimtoti with a bullet wound to the head.

At the time of the deaths, Baby says the family were reeling from the heartbreaking loss of Norah’s younger son, Lindokuhle (23), who was stabbed to death in February because he was gay.

Baby is struggling to make sense of it all. “We thought [Mbuso] was just going through something that was making him unhappy but something deeper must have been eating him.”