INTERVIEW: AKA Says Late Fiancée, Anele Tembe, Was in Psychiatric Care for Suicidal Tendencies

South African rapper Kiernan Jarryd Forbes popularly known as AKA has granted an interview for the first time since the tragic death of his fiancee Anele Tembe on the 11th of April 2021. She was said to have thrown herself off the 10th floor of their Hotel in Cape Town. In this interview with Thembekile Mrototo of Barleader TV, the rapper revealed that Anele had been receiving psychiatric care for her previous suicidal tendencies.

AKA Grants Tell-All Interview Following Death of Fiancee | NotjustOK

AKA

There have been allegations of domestic violence laid against the rapper in the weeks following Anele's death. Speaking in the interview which was uploaded on the 22nd of May 2021, AKA revealed the mental state of his late fiancee saying that she had once tried to jump out of a moving vehicle and even had to be talked down from jumping off a hotel ledge in Durban. When she threatened to jump off the balcony on that fateful day of her death, AKA said his response was to call hotel security for assistance and go into the bathroom. When Thembekile asked why he did that even after she had issued such a grave threat, he said;

In my past experience with Anele, it wasn't the first time that he had attempted or threatened to do that. She had done that here, in this home, upstairs before. She had threatened to drive her car into a wall. She had to be talked down off a ledge at the Hilton in Durban. And she had also spent some time in psychiatric care in Durban after that incident. That's why I said you need to understand that I was with somebody who had gone through this before and for me, I felt in that moment, I didn't really believe that Anele would do that.

When Thembekile asked AKA to give some clarity to a video that made the rounds on social media recently where Anele was seen sobbing and telling people, "you don't know what he's doing to me". In AKA's words;

I can understand how that looks and I can understand why people would think that way. Just to give some context into that day of that video. We had just come back from a show in Pretoria. That night, Anele had actually tried to jump out of a car while it was moving. We had more disagreements and when she says "you don't know what he's doing to me", I cannot speak to that because she is not here and I can only wonder what she was talking about or referring to but what I do know is that I loved her and did everything I could to take care of her and I cherished her.

AKA said during the interview that it is unfair for people to read a lot of meanings into things and half-stories as only he and his late fiancee can tell their story. Unfortunately, she is no longer around to tell her side of the story. When asked if the two of them did drugs together during the course of their relationship, he said;

For me, when it comes to the issue of drugs, I've been in the music industry for 15, nearly 20 years. Have I tried drugs before? Yes I have. I can say that without question. On the part of Anele, she is not here and I am not going to speak to the Internet on Anele's part because my job is to protect her memory. My job is to protect her legacy but I can only speak for myself.

According to the rapper, Anele had threatened to jump off the balcony during their argument and he responded to that by calling the hotel security for assistance before going to the bathroom. On emergence from the bathroom, she was nowhere to be found and that was when he realized that something bad had happened. This brought the question of how they managed to be in an obviously toxic relationship, he replied;

It's possible to be in a toxic relationship and be in love. I just wouldn't characterize our relationship as that kind of relationship. I believe our relationship was one that we were building towards the future. It was one in which we took the ultimate step to be with each other for the rest of our lives, and one that I put my mark in and said that was going to be my life partner. I cannot reduce our relationship to a "toxic in love". It was a serious thing. This was my wife.

When asked during the interview why he and his fiancee decided to marry even when there were obvious signs of the relationship having problems, AKA said;

I don't want to sound romantic but for me, I had found the one. She had found the one. We viewed it as well... we've got issues but we are going to work through them. That's what people do. We work through our issues

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