‘I'M A NEW WOMAN'

Marriage, baby and a brand new music – Denise Mina has reinvented herself and she couldn’t be happier

- KIM ABRAHAMS

EVERY appliance in the kitchen is perfectly positioned and there isn’t a cushion out of place on the couch.

She’s a stickler for neatness, Denise Zimba admits as she welcomes us into the stylish apartment she shares with her husband and one-year-old daughter in Vredehoek, Cape Town.

Even the toys in the baby’s play area are in what she calls an organised mess.

This is her happy place – the place she spends with her loved ones, far from the public eye.

Denise may have made a name for herself as the champagne-swilling party queen on The Wedding Bashers but being a mom brings her the greatest joy.

Her daughter, Leah Lilli-Rose Schlichtig – or Dookie as she’s nicknamed her – clambers onto her mom’s lap for a cuddle.

Denise looks as if she’s settled into her new role as parent with aplomb – but the outspoken TV personality is the first to admit it’s not as effortless as it looks.

“It’s hard to juggle being a career woman and stay-at-home mom,” she says.

She’d never manage raising a baby and work without the help of her husband and their nanny.

“She was there for me from the day Leah was born,” Denise (31) says. “It really does take a village.”

Having stepped out of the spotlight to welcome her bundle of joy, she recently started dropping hints on social media that she’s ready to return to showbiz. Although she won many fans as the tipple-loving judge on M-Net’s popular wedding show, she got her big break in 2013 as a singer in the girl-group Fly Chix and released her debut album two years ago.

Now she’s making new music.