“I think now is a good time because I'm not as emotional.”
Sonia Booth is explaining why it has taken us a while to get this lunch together. Who can forget the reasons she was emotional? There was the matter of the cheesecake in the Tupperware, there were the receipts, both literal and metaphorical, and there was the fallout — court cases, divorces and all the attendant heartache, despair and fending off of the prurient public once the emotional dust had begun to settle.
“I think I'm always reminded that as much as we are in the public eye, you always just have to understand that people will make it their business because of your public profile and they feel like you owe them an update.
“And then the notion out there is that you let us in on the details of your marriage. So you need to give us an update. It's almost like a sense of entitlement.”
As of last week, she is officially divorced from Matthew Booth, and the entire circus is hopefully behind her. She walks into Arbour Cafe in Birdhaven — a firm favourite of both of ours — in a bold red coat and sunglasses looking pulled together and strong.
She is carrying a box with various editions of the Marula Cheesecake Passion Liqueur she has produced and marketed since the events of 2022. It is an amusing riposte — reminiscent of Shakira’s answer to Piqué's strawberry jam incident, albeit a little less gory. (Shakira’s video shade involved a disembodied head in the fridge where the strawberry jam had once tempted a weak-willed temptress.)
The Sonia I know has always had a deep well of composure from which to draw and a scathing wit. It’s quite a combination — frankly I would be scared to cross her. Fortunately she gives me a bag of her alcohol-infused popcorn to try and tells me she is launching alcohol-infused lollipops next. I could do with one right now, but I settle for the Arbour Cafe’s famous chicken soup. Sonia has cake — obviously.
She was born and raised in Pimville and when I ask her what she would say to that young girl in the classic township four-room house, growing up with all her cousins and siblings, she tells me she would tell her to stand up to the bullies. “I put up with a lot. I was severely bullied when I was younger, and I believed the bullies who made me feel ugly by virtue of being dark-skinned. It's a township thing. I think that is why my mother dressed me so well and kept me close to keep an eye on me.
“The pageants and the beauty competitions, Miss South Africa, I actually did all of that as a confidence booster. Now there is absolute nothing that you can critique about my looks, my body, my complexion — is that the best you can do? You must do better than that! There is nothing you can say that will keep me awake at night!”
She is adamant that she is not tempted by complexion lightening creams and treatments. “I am happy with my skin — more importantly if I bleach my skin what message am I sending to my nieces and nephews?”
She has had what the erstwhile queen of England once termed an annus horribilis: her brother died two months ago under mysterious circumstances and the death is tearing their family apart; she is moving house — downsizing as one of her sons is studying in the US and the other is almost grown; and the interminable divorce proceedings.
But she says: “On the Friday last week the dissolution was granted, and on Thursday already, on day one of the hearing, I had a revelation and I was like ‘huh’. And that was a different woman walking out of court on Thursday. And then of course, that means a better person on Friday, because, you know I’ve been bitter, I’ve been filled with hatred, resentment.
“I’ve wanted to strangle somebody, moments of despair, where I just did not see the pain being soothed. My heart being in such pain, and me thinking if you can take a pill for your headache, surely there’s something for your heartache. Spiritually I have been shaken but now that this chapter has been closed, hopefully I can get therapy and hopefully the boys will be ready at some point because I keep on reminding them that it is not weak to seek help.”
I ask her if it had been particularly difficult to deal with the public expectations of them as a golden couple channelling ideas South Africans have about themselves. “I’ve always had an issue with people using or looking at another couple as the yardstick, looking at them as an ideal marriage before looking at your own path. It’s unfair to put me on a pedestal because I am in the public eye. Everyone is doing what they can, you don’t know the ins and outs of my marriage, the pressures we had to face, the challenges of raising active boys, one parent running here the other there with all the extramurals and sports, working, establishing a career.
“We focus so much on our kids we forget ourselves. I still regret not getting my honours, my masters. But I look at my sons, they are amazing human beings and my sons are the reason I am still alive because there were days when I thought I can’t get out of bed, and then I remembered I am still responsible to give them a warm meal after training. You look at them and you go — they did not ask to be brought into this earth, so you get your act together.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.