Anele ‘Nellie’ Tembe, South African rapper, AKA’s late fiancée, has been buried.
Nellie was laid to rest in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in the early hours of Friday, after her body arrived in Durban on Thursday.
Nellie’s father, Moses Anele, while speaking on the cause of his daughter’s death In a letter read at the funeral, stated that Nellie did not commit suicide.
He attributed her daughter’s death to the overuse of drugs and alcohol.
The letter read, “As Anele’s father, I categorically state that Anele was neither suicidal nor did she commit suicide.
“We must, as a matter of priority, deal with the scourge that bedevils our youth — alcohol, which is overused, and drugs. Fellow South Africans, we better wake up and smell the coffee; we have a serious problem with substance abuse.
“I cannot allow an unfortunate narrative to go unchallenged; a narrative that irks me to no end … that is ‘Anele was chronically suicidal’. All I can say is until Anele turned 21, not a single member of her family, my family would have associated her with suicide.”
Eeliive.ng had earlier reported that the 22-year-old died last week after falling from one of the upper floors of Cape Town’s Pepper Club Hotel.
AKA and Nellie got engaged three months ago. In March, the music star paid lobola to Nellie’s family, describing her as ‘the love of his life’ when he announced their engagement on social media.