Boxing fan, soccer fanatic, Calvin Klein model, man on the move. We spent some quality time with Lunga Shabalala, whose birthday is today, chatting about his life and dreams.

Currently presenting the brand new SABC3 reality,  She’s The One, Lunga says he’s learnt a lot about women during the series – certainly that women can be quite scary and you should never trust a smile. Having said that, Lunga also has some great advice for women and in fact anyone. Authenticity is the key. If you are going to make it anywhere, putting on an act may get you part of the way, but being your self will help you to stay the distance.

She’s The One aims to help all the contestants to grow in their desired career paths. They are presented with a series of challenges each week to prove their skills, receive expert mentoring and growth, all while building their personal brand and becoming recognisable and celebrated women on local TV. Edgars has partnered with Cheeky Media as creator and headline sponsor of the reality show. Supporting and bolstering women is a key objective of the partnership.

One of Lunga’s official roles on the show is to make the participants nervous before they face the judges. However, he also takes responsibility for motivating participants and tries to inspire them to keep their shine. Lunga says it’s surprisingly hard to say goodbye to the participants who have to leave the show, but all in all, he’s thoroughly enjoying the experience.

Lunga, who was very shy in high school and had a relatively quiet life mapped out for himself (he was studying Town Planning and saw himself eventually becoming a property mogul), suddenly found himself in the limelight when he was persuaded to enter a competition at Gateway Shopping Centre. He wasn’t really sure what the competition was about at the time, but soon found himself travelling to Johannesburg as a finalist. There he won the competition to become a Calvin Klein model and even travelled to New York. One of his highlights was a trip to Times Square, where his billboard was on display.

Understandably, telling his parents that his plans had changed dramatically was a bit tough. Both his parents are in education, so they had academic plans for Lunga. But, they took the news well and in fact, Lunga has a message on his phone from his mom that he keeps for times when he needs encouragement. It says: ‘Thank you so much for being the son you are to me. You are the greatest gift I ever had in my entire life.’

In a tough industry, this young man is set to keep moving forward. He’s learned to play the game with integrity, to bite his tongue when necessary, be professional at all times and most importantly, stay authentic.

Lunga will be featured in our next edition of Blaque Life Digest, strutting his gorgeous stuff, so watch this space for news of our photoshoot with him. Catch up with him on She’s The One on SABC3 every Thursday at 7:30pm as he escorts the female participants towards the ultimate R1 million prize, which includes a year’s worth of cosmetics and clothing from Edgars.  If you’ve missed out, you can catch-up with the webisodes on the Edgars She’s The One YOUTube channel and follow the conversation on Twitter with @ShesTheOneSA and #STOSA.

 

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