I was quite young when I first heard Jurie Els sing on radio and immediately loved his music with it's nice beat and sing-along lyrics. Much to my delight I found out that he grew up in the same town where I lived, Vrede and I started seeing him around town when he visited his elderly mother. His tailor lived across the road from us in the house she bought from my grandfather's estate and my mom used to type up documents for him when I was a baby still. Vrede is a small town and everyone knows one another.
Jurie won Noot-vir-Noot and by that time he was my hero. By this time I had a huge infatuation with him although he obviously was unaware of it. My mom bought me all his CDs and I wrote to him. I was ecstatic when he wrote me a post card back and when running into my mom in the shop, he asked her if it was her daughter who wrote him. In Welkom I went to a radio station where they let me into the studio where he was and we chatted. I was in 7th heaven!
As a young adult I moved to Johannesburg and I didn't miss one of his performances. My boyfriend at the time was incredibly jealous when I listened to Jurie's CDs and he made some of them disappear, but that's a whole new topic on it's own.
In recent news, Jurie is said to have got an interdict against Media24 banning them from publishing details on allegations by up and coming singer, Robbie Klay of molestation by a prominent singer he calls "The Uncle", who's name is known to The Beeld. The allegations are damning and the insinuations very clear.
My heart has been in agony. I too have a little boy and if anyone touches him, I will sure kill them. I don't want to believe that Jurie did such a thing. Local gossip blog bosparra.com says that if Jurie was innocent, why the interdict. This whole situation feels like a dark cloud with no silver lining. My heart aches for Robbie Klay who lost his innocence at the hands of a predator and my heart aches that Jurie is implied. It's hard to hear such things about someone so... homegrown, so fresh, talented and sweet. Someone you had been infatuated with for half of your life.
My personal view on how child molesters should be punished is not something I would wish on anyone I have ever known, but there can never be exceptions. I can only pray that there was a misunderstanding, however that still doesn't help Robbie.
Jurie Els and his wife, high jump champion Hestrie Cloete were not available for comment on Friday. Their cellphones were off following their announcement in January that they were emigrating to New Zealand. I can't imagine the pain Hestrie must be going through during this time.
When all is said and done, stars and celebrities are people just like us that literally live under the spotlight. All the blemishes show up under pressure, as we've seen with Britney Spears and her public breakdown.
My heart goes out to anyone who's life has ever been affected by molestation and I hope this nightmare will soon be over.
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