How to Ruin Love

Love, Lobola & Real-Life Drama: The Messiest Gossip Behind “How to Ruin Love”

The show may be about ruining romance, but off-screen the cast is busy juggling pregnancy rumors, obsessed fans, divorce-money shade and a deeply emotional posthumous performance. Grab your lobola cows, we’re going in.

Romance Rumors & Baby Bump Whispers

Sivenathi “Zoleka” Mabuya-Bukani’s maybe-baby saga

• In June 2025, Sive posted glam pics from a Shaka iLembe event and instantly broke the speculation meter. Fans flooded her comments with “Congratulations on your pregnancy” and “So happy for you and hubby,” purely based on how her dress sat on her stomach.
• Others dragged the commenters, calling it “rude” to announce someone else’s pregnancy when she hadn’t said a word. Sive herself? Quiet as a Netflix spoiler screen.^[3]

Happily-ever-afters behind the heartbreak

• Sive is not the messy Zoleka IRL — she’s been married to Aphiwe Bukani since 2022, after telling media she waited 12 years for the right first date.
• Leading man Bohang Moeko (Kagiso) is also off the market; he and wife Shantal celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary in March 2025, with coverage noting the milestone and his Netflix rise at the same time.

Translation: that Zoleka–Kagiso chemistry is nuclear, but it’s strictly professional… as far as anything public goes.

Cast Feuds & Fan Behaviour: When Stans Go Too Far

Tembinkosi Ngcukana vs. the “entitled” fangirls

• Heartthrob Tembinkosi Ngcukana, who joined How to Ruin Love: The Lobola, had to publicly call out his own fandom after some women started getting way too handsy and clingy in real life.
• In an Instagram Story rant, he said:

> “Hi ladies, quick one. Because it's starting to get out of hand. The entitlement needs to stay with your boyfriends, neh? Walking up to me, blocking my way to just stare at me, ain't it.”^[5]

• He begged fans not to physically block him or demand his attention while he’s on his phone, reminding them he is not his sexy telenovela character Thulani 24/7.^[5]
• Local press framed it as a fan harassment issue, with Ngcukana politely but firmly telling SA women to respect his space.^[5]

No open cast feuds have surfaced, but clearly some of the drama lives in the DMs and grocery store aisles.

Scandals & Soap-Crossover Chaos

Mapaseka Koetle’s divorce-money shade & DJ Fresh rumors

• Fan-favourite Mapaseka “Pasi” Koetle (Katlego) brings her own tabloid storm from Scandal! into the Netflix universe.

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• For years, social media’s been buzzing that she left her husband for DJ Fresh — a rumor she’s publicly denied, but it just won’t die.^[10]
• In 2025, her Zanzibar trip lit up Facebook again, with headlines like: “Scandal!’s Mapaseka Koetle’s Zanzibar Trip Has Mzansi Convinced: She’s Still Chewing That Divorce Money.”^[10]
• Another viral post about her character’s long-running Scandal! storylines snarked that she “slept with his father and cousin” — blurring lines between Dintle-the-character and Pasi-the-person in the public’s mind.

Result: by the time she shows up in How to Ruin Love, viewers already treat her like walking, talking scandal bait.

Loss, Legacy & A Haunting Final Performance

Meme Ditshego’s final bow from beyond the grave

• Beloved veteran actress Meme Ditshego, known from Ga Re Dumele and other classics, died in June 2025 at around 60.
• Months later, Netflix announced she would still appear in How to Ruin Love: The Lobola in a posthumous role, with entertainment commentator Mlu noting on X that she and Thabo Malema star in “a new chapter” of the franchise being released worldwide on 19 December 2025.^[7]
• Coverage described it as “a final bow with love,” turning her appearance into an emotional event for fans who watched her for decades.^[7]

It’s one of the rare times a rom-com spin-off arrives carrying genuine grief and nostalgia alongside the laughs.

Behind the Scenes: Chemistry Tests, Bloopers & Power Siblings

Ten callbacks and one sizzling chemistry read

• Sivenathi Mabuya revealed she had to survive 10 callbacks and a chemistry read with Bohang Moeko before landing Zoleka in The Proposal. She said she’d happily go through that gauntlet again because the role – and their on-screen connection – was worth it.^[10]

Real-life chemistry, professionally contained

• Bohang later told City Press that he and Sive were “fortunate to have natural chemistry from the start” and that building trust over time made the romantic chaos feel authentic on screen.

Bloopers that prove the set is pure chaos (in a good way)

• Multiple TikTok and Facebook reels show **bloopers from *How to Ruin Love: The Lobola***: cast members laughing too hard to get through scenes, flubbed lines, and the whole vibe of a crew barely holding it together through the lobola madness.

The Ramaphakela sibling empire

• The entire How to Ruin universe — How to Ruin Christmas, How to Ruin Love: The Proposal and The Lobola — comes from sibling creators Rethabile and Katleho Ramaphakela and their company Burnt Onion Productions.
• Industry pieces point out that The Proposal is Netflix’s first South African spin-off in the franchise, cementing Burnt Onion as a serious power player in local streaming.

So… How Messy Is It Really?

Despite the show’s title, the real-world mess is more “spicy Mzansi drama” than Hollywood-collapse:

• No confirmed on-set fights or walk-offs surfaced.
• Relationship chaos mostly lives in fan imaginations, while the leads are locked into real-life marriages.
• The biggest actual sparks? Over-enthusiastic fans, long-running soap rumors following cast members into Netflix, and the emotional weight of Meme Ditshego’s final role.

In other words: the franchise might be about ruining love — but behind the scenes, the only thing truly ruined is the cast’s ability to go to the mall without someone blocking their path for a selfie.