Zozi, You Did It!

There were tears and cheers all round for Miss SA Zozibini Tunzi on the night she won the Miss Universe title

THE tension in the arena was almost too much to endure. Standing on stage, Zozibini “Zozi” Tunzi looked as if she didn’t even dare breathe as she waited for the big announcement.

Then in just seven words, her life was irrevocably changed. “The new Miss Universe is . . . South Africa,” presenter Steve Harvey boomed. And with that, pandemonium erupted in the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta in the American state of Georgia.

As an astonished Zozi (26) tried to absorb the news, her shiny new crown gleaming on her head, the cameras panned to her delighted parents, Lungisa and Philiswa, and elder sister, Yanga (30), who were all dressed in traditional attire and cheering her on with a bright and unmissable South African flag.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away from her two younger sisters, Sibabalwe (24) and Ayakha (13), sat in the living room of their home in East London in the Eastern Cape, their eyes glued to the TV screen as they watched the biggest moment of their sister’s life.

Because of the big time difference between SA and America, they had to stay up until the early hours to watch the pageant, but there’s no way they’d have missed seeing their glamorous sibling becoming the third South African to win the coveted Miss Universe title after Margaret Gardiner (1978) and Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters (2017).

As the enormity of her achievement hit home, they couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Our parents video-called us and the first thing they did when we connected was started crying and we started crying,” Sibabalwe tells YOU.

“They were like, ‘No, don’t cry,’ and we were like, ‘You guys are crying!’

” It still feels surreal for the Tunzi sisters. Sibabalwe recalls how inspired Zozi was in 2011 after watching Venezuela’s Ivian Sarcos being crowned Miss World.