James Small’s premature death from a heart attack at the age of 50 has closed the book on a complex and charismatic character — the rugby star who stopped All Blacks giant Jonah Lomu in his tracks in 1995, the one-time brawler, model, socialite and glamour boy, who latterly lived his life far from the limelight.
There was a time when Small was constantly in the headlines, either on the sports pages or in the gossip columns. The same fire that made him a force of nature on the rugby field caused tumult in his personal life.
In 1997, when he was 27 and still gilded with the glow of SA’s 1995 World Cup victory, Small was photographed with top SA model Christina Storm for the cover of Femina magazine. Their chemistry was instant and intense.
A few months later, Storm said: “We had known each other forever. We were part of each other’s social circle. For years we stared at each other. After that shoot we had lunch. The rest, as they say, is history.”
At the time, Small was dating Loui Visser and voiced amused concern about the steamy photos he and Storm were posing for. “What is my girlfriend going to think?” he asked.
Within a matter of weeks Small and Storm became Cape Town’s It Couple. They were in every glossy magazine and at every A-list party. Storm said it was not uncommon for her to walk onto the balcony of their Clifton apartment and see camera-toting tourists across the road, hoping to photograph the glamour couple.
Visser’s reaction to being dumped was not noted at the time but, after marrying and divorcing footballer Mark Fish, in 2012 she published a “tell-all” memoir, in which she said Small had introduced her to cocaine and physically assaulted her.
Small responded by saying Visser had been “more of a groupie than a girlfriend”. “This woman is a joke and is laughable,” he said.
By then he was used to negative attention. But even back at that 1997 fashion shoot — when the worst publicity he’d had involved professional disagreements on the rugby field and punch-ups with other sportsmen — Small said he loved the limelight when it was good and hated it when it was bad.
“Look, I’ll never deny that I love the attention,” he said. “I just can’t deal with it when it’s negative … I don’t know what it is. I just know every year that something is going to happen and then I’ll find myself in trouble. I hate it.”
He and Storm had a tumultuous relationship. In 2001, after they had broken up, Small admitted that he’d hit her during some of their fights and was undergoing therapy.
Later that year, Small was hospitalised with a slashed wrist. His doctor, Murray Rushmere, said he’d suffered a breakdown caused by “a long period of emotional stress”. Former president Nelson Mandela phoned Small to offer comfort and encouragement.
Small’s mother said at the time: “James has never had a normal life. After an unhappy childhood, he became a celebrity at 18 and has been in the public eye since then.”
He and Storm got back together and in 2004 had a daughter, Ruby, but not long afterwards they split for good.
Small began to disappear from the party circuit and the social pages, but in 2009 the public eye fixed itself fiercely on him again when Storm gave details of their early violent arguments to a magazine.
Small retaliated by coming out of media hibernation. He agreed to a 40th birthday interview with You magazine and said: “You can never excuse violence towards a woman. It’s not right. Once is once too often. It’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life and I’ve punished myself more than anyone else could. I couldn’t look in the mirror for a very long time.”
That was the last tabloid story about Small. Like many celebrities whose misdeeds are magnified under the media microscope, he learnt to be wary of journalists, although he was always polite to the press and understood the need to feed his fans.
One of the few exceptions was when Chester Williams’s biography was published in 2002. The book, written by rugby writer Mark Keohane, claimed that Small had hurled racist insults at Williams when the players were on opposing sides, and had shunned Williams when they were teammates.
Small denied this and remained furious about it. In 2015, Keohane approached Small on Twitter to ask for the telephone number of a guesthouse run by Small’s mother. Small responded with a string of strongly worded refusals, including: “Leave me and my loved ones out of your world ... You have caused nothing but pain! F*** OFF u little worm!”
Small was not overly active on social media of late. His last tweet, posted on June 7, was a statement issued collectively by members of the 1995 Springbok rugby squad, asking for greater respect and tolerance for all in SA. It read: “The spirit of 95, when this country came together, is precious and must be actively nurtured and sustained.”
In recent years, all was quiet on the Small front. He sold his restaurant in Camps Bay, to which the beautiful people used to flock, and moved to Johannesburg to be close to his daughter. He also has a younger son from another relationship. He coached rugby at university and club level and renovated houses. For years he has not been in the headlines. But he was not forgotten. The world will celebrate him more for his public achievements than his personal demons, and his family will mourn their loved one, the real James Small.
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