It's Made Me Stronger

Actress Shoki Sebotsane has moved on after ending her unhappy and allegedly abusive marriage and is looking forward to a brighter future with her daughters.

- Qhama Dayile

SHE once felt so unsafe she used to sleep with a knife under her pillow every night – but since calling it quits on her abusive 10year marriage she’s found a new lease of life and an untapped well of confidence to draw from.

Reshoketswe “Shoki” Sebotsane is living life on her terms and well on the road to healing and learning to love herself, she says. And she’s finding an unending source of joy in her two young children.

DRUM is catching up with the petite actress exactly a year after she first opened up about the shocking abuse she allegedly endured at the hands of her husband, actor Sello Sebotsane (‘He beat me to a pulp’, 16 March 2017).

The woman here today is worlds away from the distraught actress who was traumatised about walking out of her marriage and worried about how her daughters, now aged 10 and nine, were going to adjust.

But things are going so much better now, she says. Seeing her kids happy and unafraid makes her a better mother, Shoki adds.

“I have always been a hands-on mother, I read to my kids, we play and if they want me to roll on the floor and act like a dead cat I will. Nothing has changed since Sello left us except that we’re safe and don’t live in fear anymore.”

It feels good not to be afraid, she shares. “My girls are now safe and they attend The Teddy Bear Clinic, a foundation that helps kids who have either been abused or seen abuse. I got out of my marriage when I realised my children’s lives were on the line.”

The Skeem Saam star left her husband in 2016 and the pair – once the golden couple of Mzansi entertainment – is in the process of getting a divorce.

“I have gained inner strength and my feet are firmly on the ground,” Shoki says. “I know what I like and what I don’t like and I laugh more and my kids and I speak about everything.