Imagine this: you’re minding your own business, posting your pictures on Twitter and Instagram for your 478,000 followers, then all of a sudden you’re informed that your photographs – fished from social media – are trending in a country 4,030 kilometers away. You embark on finding out why your pictures are so popular in that foreign country.
Then shocks hits you hard that you are accused of leaking to WhatsApp, Telegram and all these other social networking sites a video of a prominent man, naked and in his most vulnerable state.
You immediately begin to wonder: “who did this, why me? Do I even know this guy”?
That is the situation South African sports presenter Chulumanco Amahle Siphungu found herself in this week. Her pictures were trending in Kenya, unknown to her.
A veteran Kenyan politician Mukhisa Kituyi hit the informal news platforms recently after a video of his alleged private moment with a woman circulated on social media.
The politician appeared stark naked, with the person recording the video panning the phone camera from his head, supposedly to show his face, all the way to his feet. It remains unclear whether that video was doctored, or it captured what happened without any modifications.
Later, it was said on several social media platforms that the identity of the woman who took the video had been established. Fairly tall; curvy to a fault, with thick shapely legs, an almost perfect jawline, armed with liquid eyes and distinctly feminine bust, dressed in a bright-red figure hugging dress, with a slit to die for and beige stilettos, the woman was given a Kenyan anonym, yet her national identity bears a South African name: Chulumanco Amahle Siphungu.
A look at her Twitter profile, which goes by the username @MahleS21, shows she posted that exact picture on May 1, 2021 with the caption being a red heart emoji.
That image and another showing her seated on a raised three legs stool were retweeted at least 975 times, liked 19,800 times and attracted a response pool of 522 comments. Besides her beauty, Chulamanco is a star in her own right, and that’s why her pictures attracted such a heavy engagement load.
The Standard reached her on Twitter to react to the news of her pictures doing the rounds on Kenyans’ WhatsApp pages, and for all the wrong reasons.
“Honestly, I am shocked,” read the first part of her response.
“It’s very unfortunate that people are quick to spread false information [which risks to harm someone’s reputation]. [I fail to understand] why my picture was used [to claim I leaked the politician’s explicit video]. I have no idea, at all,” added Chulamanco.
“I have never been to Kenya, or even heard of this politician [who people are linking me to],” she said.
Who is Chulumanco Amahle Siphungu?
She is a 21-year-old journalist born and raised in Eastern Cape Province in South Africa.
South African media platforms say she works for SuperSport as a broadcaster.
Chulumanco is also a fashion model and a social media influencer with a following of 338,000 on Instagram and 140,000 on Twitter.
She recently won an ambassadorial deal with one of the leading global betting companies.
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