A NEW LIFE & A NEW LOVE

Former football star Mark Fish's eldest son, Luke, has left the trauma of his childhood and substance abuse behind him and is making a fresh start with fiancée Elmary

- MARELIZE GRBICH

IT'S hard to believe the clean-cut, healthy-looking guy is the same gaunt, sickly person who weighed barely 50kg just one year ago.

Back then his nose was studded with piercings, his eyes were glassy, his head covered almost permanently by a beanie and his life darkened by substance abuse and the demons that haunted him from his past.

These days Luke Fish (25) - the rapper formerly known as Seth Omen and the eldest son of former Bafana Bafana star Mark Fish and model Loui Fish - is a whole new person.

He's lean and toned, the piercings and beanie are gone and his eyes are clear. He also smiles a lot more than he's done in a long time - and it's all thanks to the attractive woman at his side, who's helped give him a new lease on life.

Elmary Abrahams is Luke's fiancée and "the most normal person I know", he says.

He shares everything with her and spares none of the difficult details.

Some people might not be able to take it, but Elmary isn't going anywhere.

"He told me I'm the only person who sees everything about him and still believes in him," she says. "I don't care about his past - I see only the person in front of me. We all have things in our past. I just want to move forward from here on out."

Elmary (45) knows all about Luke's struggle with drugs and the traumatic childhood he says he endured. In one of his rap songs, he talks about how his dad assaulted his mom and in a previous interview with YOU he told how he'd often tried to shield his mother from his father.

He also revealed how he was just a kid when he got caught up in hard drugs and how he was once sexually assaulted at one of his parents' parties.

He and Mark, who helped to lead Bafana Bafana to victory in the 1996 African Cup of Nations, were estranged, he said.