After asking with the public to help settle his R45 000 due to his landlord, actor Vusi Thanda reportedly received R30 000 from Khokhova founder Sammy Mhaule of Kicks Footwear.
They held an event in his honor and were able to raise R30,000. “After considerable thought and discussion with Vusi Thanda, we decided it would be best for us to opt out of organizing an event and have instead agreed to pay them a cheque for R30,000 as our contribution to this legend,” Sammy Mhaule told the Sunday World.
“Although we would have loved to host the event as planned, this approach made more sense to everyone involved, because the ultimate goal of this whole exercise was always to offer relief to uBaba,” he added.
Vusi who was at first reluctant to even accept assistance as he distanced himself from this, thanked the team for their support. “I am officially saying goodbye to poverty. I don’t want to touch a cent of this money but instead I want to invest it, because that is a mistake I made in the past,” said Thanda. “I have learned my lesson and never want to misuse money again. Thank you to the Kicks team for standing by me through this very difficult time. May God bless all of you.”
Before the event, Vusi Thanda told Daily Sun that he knows nothing about this event. “I can’t comment on this because I’m not part of it. I was never informed about it. If they want to honor me, they would have contacted and informed me. Their gesture would have been good and appreciated, but I’m offended because they informed the media without telling me.”
Sammy defended their decision to host the event saying they wanted to contribute to his struggles.
”The idea to host this event came after myself and the team had seen the video of uBab Vusi Thanda pleading for help on social media. As a brand born out of the hardships of Covid-19, we know first-hand how hard the last few years have been, so helping out was a no-brainer.”
“We’ve had the Khokhova stock in our warehouse for quite some time, and this is a way to put it to really good use and turn something that would have been otherwise negative into a silver lining,” Mhaule told IOL.
Vusi Thanda once spoke about how Shiba Ferguson was of great help to him before his death. He told DJ Sbu on his podcast The Hustler’s Corner, “He respected me, he called me in different ways, papa, father together with his wife.”
“You know Sho sent his driver with a voucher of R5000 and said, tell him to guy buy food because Diabetes is a sickness that is related to food. Thereafter he called me and gave me R12 000 for three months every month end. I appreciate the company’s love.”