If you watched
Flash! on SABC3 this Wednesday (22 July) you wouldn't have realised you were watching
Isabella de Villiers for the last time. Neither would she, mind you.
Yesterday SABC3 sent out a press release announcing a new presenter for the show, who takes over from Isabella as from next week (29 July).
The new presenter is former
Deal or No Deal suitcase model and
O-boma presenter
Rachel Stuart, a Zimbabwean-born presenter and model.
This was the official notification:
"The dazzling Isabella de Villiers has moved on but viewers should keep watching this space as she would be popping up on Flash! from time to time to cover appropriate Flash Diary events."
That's it. One day you're the co-host of the show, your boyfriend (actor Porteus Xandau) is
considering moving to Johannesburg to be with you - and the next day you're gone, demoted to the occasional diary insert.
We're sure there's a legitimate reason for the abrupt mid-season change, althoulgh clearly this came as a surprise to Isabella herself: on Wednesday 22 July (the day of her last show) she posted the following status update to
her Twitter account:
"wow - having an intense two days. but alls good!!" (Link)
It was her birthday two days earlier (20 July) - her last post before the one above was as follows:
"off to a romantic birthday dinner with my man! no idea where we're going...how exciting!!!" (Link)
A marked contrast in tone, we trust you agree.
We have asked the SABC, Isabella and her agent for comment and have moles digging deep, leaving mounds of dirt in their wake. We'll update you when we know more.
In the meantime - if you haven't seen O-boma or Deal or No Deal, meet Rachel Stuart:
Born in Harare, Rachel won the Miss Zimbabwe crown in 1998 and represented her country in the Miss Universe competition held in Hawaii the following year.
In 1999 she moved to South Africa after being offered a contract by the G3 modelling agency and has been here ever since.
After modelling for print, television commercials and fashion shows, Rachel landed her first television gig - Deal or No Deal. While shooting the first season of the show she did a TV interview promoting it and was spotted by Natano Brache, one of the bosses at Channel O.
Rachel went for an audition and got the job as one of the new presenters on the interactive music show O-boma.
Although working on the pay channels is all very well, the holy grail for any presenter in South Africa is landing up in primetime on one of the free-to-air channels - which is exactly what Rachel has now achieved.
She joins Flash! in Episode 18 of 26, which will be broadcast next week (29 July).
Perhaps there's more to it all than a presenter revamp - in that episode the show will also introduce a new feature, Flash Frame with Andy, in which Andy "The Admiral" Kasrils will do a weekly movie round-up in studio with the presenters.
That's a whole bunch of changes overnight, which leads one to question precisely what sort of feedback the show's producers have been getting of late. No wonder
Viwe's laying low.
Whatever the case - life is now imitating art, as it always does. Isabella previously gave us the story - now she is the story. Let's hope it ends well for her.
-- UPDATE --Friday 24 July, 17h20We've received official comment from Isabella's agent, Contractors - this is what they had to say:
To the best of our knowledge SABC 3 required a format change for Flash! Isabella de Villiers has also previously come to the decision to look for more long term presenting work seeing that Flash! has 9 episodes left in the series. She will however continue as a roaming reporter.
Isabella has simultaneously been working on several other projects while she was with Flash! Besides new projects in the pipeline, viewers will soon be able to see the reality programme MAN on SABC3 she produced.