A Light Gone Out

"Friends and colleagues pay tribute to larger-than-life journalist and presenter Kuli Roberts"

- By Shanaaz Prince & Robyn Lucas

He was often referred to as her twin because they were always together and it was no different on the last day of her life. Nyaniso Bhengu accompanied his close friend Nomakula “Kuli” Roberts to an early morning meeting in Johannesburg on 9 February and says the media personality was in high spirits.

“She was as lively as ever and excited that our meeting had gone well,” Nyaniso, an entrepreneur, tells YOU. The pair then shared a car ride back to Centurion in Tshwane, where they both lived. They were laughing as usual and Kuli (49) removed her wig, revealing her bald head. “She’d gone bald for a shoot,” Nyaniso says.

Kuli asked Nyaniso to join her later that evening for a new show she was shooting in North Kyalami, Joburg, but he declined because he was too tired from the day’s activities.

“She called me later when she got to the studio,” he says. “They started doing her makeup and she said, ‘Talk to you later. I love you’.”

Those were the last words she’d say to him. An hour later he received a call from paramedics, saying Kuli was having a seizure-like attack after complaining of dizziness. “Obviously I was worried but the paramedics told me they had everything under control.”

He then called one of Kuli’s younger sisters, Rethabile Mboya, and daughter, India Corte, to let them know she’d collapsed but that paramedics had assured him it wasn’t serious.