ON TOP OF her game

Nomuzi “Moozlie” Mabena (27) has managed to stay at the top of the television presenting game for seven years. In her first magazine cover feature ever, she chats to Kwanele Mathebula about her staying power and venturing into music.

- Kwanele Mathebula

My first encounter with Nomuzi was seeing her presenting on V Entertainment back in 2016. I enjoyed her sense of humour, laughter and on-screen energy. When I meet her on the morning of the cover shoot, she’s calm and ready to get dolled up. At the end of what was an incredibly quick and fun shoot, I got the opportunity to sit down with the same lively personality that captured me on TV all those years ago.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

Nomuzi is a Benoni native; born and raised in the small town tucked away in the east of Johannesburg. She grew up in a tight-knit family with her older sister and parents. She proudly shares that they’ve been married for 33 years. Like many of us 90s kids, she had aspirations of being a TV presenter on Yo-TV. “Presenters Sade Giliberti, Hulisani Ravele, Dr Musa Mthombeni and the late Akhumzi Jezile were all so epic. I was obsessed with the show,” she says. In 2007, she ventured into the pageant world, winning her high-school pageant to become Miss St. Dunstan’s College Junior. Her prize included a two-month voucher for a modelling course at Rampage

Modelling Agency, which she highly enjoyed. “I learnt so many lessons that I still use to this day. For instance, this photo shoot was quick and easy because I have that background.” At the end of her course, she managed to convince her parents to keep her in the agency until she matriculated.

SEIZING THE MOMENT