The hyped-up reality show Real Housewives of Johannesburg will
eventually be making it to TV after the fiasco that struck it last year.
BUT it isn't called Real Housewives. It's the new show Divas of Jozi which starts on SABC3 this Monday (4 July) at 20h00.
When we first heard about Divas we suspected a connection between the two and it turns out there is because it features the exact
same cast as Real Housewives, with one added extra. It's been reinvented and refilmed and it's back with a different production company.
Real Housewives of Johannesburg was produced by Tigere Media and was
struck by controversy when production suddenly ceased in 2015 after filming for six months. Sunday Times and Sowetan
reported that there were rights issues with it and that the housewives involved wanted to sue the production after the footage ended up on the chopping room floor.
The noise died down and a different production company picked up the pieces between then and now. It's being produced by Bravoplex Media and it's being filmed as we speak.
How will the two shows be different? We asked the series creative producer Sinini Nyathi-Mati who told us: "I didn't want it to be tacky. For instance, if we were to look at the Housewives of Atlanta, there's a lot of tackiness. If I remember one episode vividly, when one of them said, 'It's like your VJJ has left your body,' - we don't want to portray that sort of tackiness and them going physically at each other. We wouldn't want it to go there.
"We're women and we respect each other. If you do something I don't agree with I will sit down and address you like an adult. We're not going to have bottles of wine flying at people's faces and all that. We've shot up until episode 6 and we haven't had that but we've had drama."
The show follows the women as they go about their daily life, attend events, meet famous people etc. - they've been preparing for the Durban July this week.
These are the six divas... all of them were on Housewives, except Stevie at the end:
Aimee Sadie
Part time model and owner of Desch boutique in Sandton City.
Christie Swanepoel
Businesswoman who is CEO of the recruitment agency Energy at Work.
Nazley Delport
Image consultant and night club manager.
Sorisha Naidoo
- Wife of billionaire Vivian Reddy.
- Businesswoman who has her own cosmetics company.
- Played Nadia Narain on Scandal for three years and presented on Easte
rn Mosaic.
- Was Miss India SA in 2001.
Puleng Mash-Spies
- Controversial socialite and self-confessed Queen of the exclusive golfing estate Dainfern.
- Caused trouble on the second season of Come Dine With Me SA.
Stevie French
TV presenter and actress who's had roles on Isidingo and Ihawu.