Nothing Gets This Barbie Down

Former stripper says she is living her best life and won't crumble to bullies

- Doreen Mokgolo

SOCIALITE Ennie Thembi Tshabalala, popularly known as Barbie Brazil or Miss Piggy, says she has grown a thick skin over the years, especially for being mocked about her looks. She is known for lightening her skin and having five cosmetic procedures done on her body, but she says this doesn’t mean that she hates being black. The 32-year-old, who grew up on a small farm outside Thokoza, east of Joburg, says she will not stop doing plastic surgery to please anyone.

A DIFFICULT UPBRINGING

Ennie says she was ridiculed and mocked all her life because of her poor family background.

“My life has not always been easy; I grew up on a small farm with my parents and little brother. My mother was a domestic worker while my father was a gardener. During the political conflicts in the country, my father moved me and my brother to live with his siblings in the villages," says Ennie.

"It was hard; we were abused physically and emotionally. I had to wash clothes for my aunts and their children and was sometimes denied food. We walked long distances bare foot, even when my parents bought shoes for us, which were instead given to my cousins.”

She says she was very small and people in the area used to say she was HIV positive and suffering from malnutrition or TB.

"They compared my frail body to that of a scarecrow. I had to develop a thick skin and learn to protect and defend myself at a very young age.”

WORKING AS A STRIPPER