PASTURES NEW FOR DEVI

Dynamo reporter Devi Sankaree Govender has bid farewell to Carte Blanche – and it’s all Trevor Noah’s fault!

- LESEGO SEOKWANG

THERE was nobody on TV quite like her. Feisty and fearless, Devi Sankaree Govender made South Africans laugh, cry and huff in indignation for nearly two decades as she lifted the lid on some of the most touching, tragic and outrageous stories in the land.

Whether she was dealing with a smalltime crook, a company CEO or a cabinet minister, the formidable Carte Blanche presenter never shied away from turning up the heat in interviews.

But recently Devi made a shocking revelation of her own: after 18 years and more than 800 episodes on M-Net’s longest-running show, she’d decided it was time to hang up her mic and do something new.

Chatting to us now, Devi admits that after all these years in the hot seat it’s strange to be a free agent suddenly.

“It feels empty, but I suspected I’d feel like this,” she says.

“A lot of people aren’t happy in their jobs so for them it’s easy to make a decision and go. I wasn’t unhappy – I was settled and could’ve probably stayed as long as I wanted. But it was time.”

At this point, she can’t disclose what her new venture is all about but it seems comedian Trevor Noah is to blame for her surprising move.

Devi (47) says The Daily Show host planted the seed in her mind when she visited him on set in New York in 2017.

“He said something along the lines of ‘If you’re at the top of your game now, then you need to be thinking of something else where you’re at the bottom of the pile’,” she recalls.

That was the only way to stay fresh, he said – by finding something else that provides new challenges.

His words stuck with her and now, after two years of mulling them over, she’s finally taking the leap into the unknown.