Basetsana Kumalo took to Instagram to celebrate her 50th birthday on Friday, 29 March.
BASETSANA KUMALO MARKS HER 50TH BIRTHDAY‘ON GOOD FRIDAY’
The former South African pageant queen has reached a huge milestone. Basetsana Kumalo has touched the fifth floor or reached the fifth chapter of her life so they say. Not only has her birthday put her into a great mood, but the fact that it fell on Good Friday this year seems to have made her even happier.
“On the 29th of March, 50 years ago, it was God ordained and anointed that I turn fifty on Good Friday,” she wrote on her feed.
Speaking about the routes of her family tree, Kumalo said: “I was born into the Makgalemele family to my dearly departed parents Ntate Phillip and Nomazizi Makgalemele, their third daughter after Aus’ Lerato and Maniko (Johanna) my younger brother who is the last born of the family Mojalefa was born two years after me…
“I was raised in a loving home where Christian values were instilled in us from a very young age. My father was a bus driver and my mother was a teacher, out of their 8-5 jobs, they were entrepreneurs, formidable and ahead of their time,” Kumalo said.
According to the International Women Forum South Africa, the former Miss SA is now a Director of Travel with Flair, and an Executive Chairperson of Tswelopele Productions, the television production company behind the production of Top Billing, as well as a co-founder and CEO of Connect TV, a company that produces a number of reality shows.
“I gleaned and learned to be an entrepreneur from my parents’ home. My frame of reference is seeing them work exceptionally hard to put food on the table, clothes on our backs, shoes on our feet and a roof over our heads. My father used to say “Baby girl, hard work has never killed anybody,” Kumalo said.
Basetsana Kumalo
Photo of Basetsana Kumalo with the late former South African president Nelson Mandela. Image via Instagram @basetsanakumalo
MORE ABOUT THE FORMER MODEL-TURNED-BUSINESSWOMAN
Basetsana Kumalo was crowned Miss South Africa in 1994. She was also the first runner-up in Miss World of the same year, TshisaLIVE reported.
“When I came into public life thirty years ago, I was embraced by the love of a nation, a rainbow nation in the new South Africa. A new democracy, a new dispensation, a new dawn, a new country,” she said.
“Throughout all these years I have experienced a love of a nation in the most beautiful way. The zeitgeist of winning Miss South Africa in 1994 and being part of the first democratic elections was a poignant moment for me. I couldn’t have scripted it myself even if I had tried,” Kumalo added.
“On this Jubilee year, marking half a century, I thank the Lord who has carried me through the years. I am who I am because greater is He that is in me than the one that is in the world,” Kumalo penned.