IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

South Africa’s golden couple Lee-Ann Liebenberg and Nicky Van Der Walt have come out stronger after that damaging social media storm

- SIPHOKAZI ZAMA

A MOMENT of madness and a cry for help – that’s how she describes what went down in July last year.

“It was a lot of things that culminated into that and it was probably the hardest period we’ve had to go through,” Lee-Ann Liebenberg says. “But if anything, it’s strengthened our resolve that we want to be together.”

And togetherness is the message Lee-Ann and husband Nicky Van Der Walt are projecting today. Watching them sitting side by side at a table in Tang, their trendy bar and restaurant in Sandton, Johannesburg, they can’t keep their hands off each other and finish each other’s sentences. But it’s taken hard work, difficult conversations and therapy to get to this point. The drama that erupted after Lee-Ann dropped a bomb on social media last year left people wondering if the seemingly idyllic marriage was over.

She and Nicky (42) were separating after a decade of marriage, Lee-Ann said. She named a woman she accused of having an affair with Nicky and said she could have him.

Nicky didn’t respond to the cheating allegations but did go on social media to say he and his wife weren’t breaking up.

“Lee is suffering from deep PPD [postpartum depression] and all I can do is try to be there for her for the best of my family whom I love and respect with my whole being,” he wrote on social media.

“I ask everyone to please give us space to work through this and respect our family and pray for her to get better so we can put it behind us and focus on our beautiful children. Lee-Ann, I love you with all my heart, baby. Always and forever.”