Boity’s big reality check

After spending three months on e.tv’s Reality Check, Boity Thulo is very appreciative of the life she lives.

“The show has been a big eye-opener for me,” she says. “Some of us are very privileged, but getting stuck in your own life tends to make you take things for granted.” Thulo is currently on the show with dance choreographer Somizi Mhlongo and musician Bongani Fassie.

Each week the three stars work together to complete socially helpful activities such as collecting waste, caring for stray animals and organic farming. The aim of the show is to get the celebrities to do meaningful charity work, while making them aware of how many underprivileged people live. With every task they complete successfully, the celebrities are awarded R2 000. At the end of the season all the money they have accumulated goes to a charity of their choice.

FILE PICTURE: Boity Thulo will be dancing with Ryan Hammond in the latest season of Strictly Come Dancing. Picture strictlycomedancingsa.co.za

“I was very curious to see whether I would actually get a reality check and I did. Visiting an old age home was definitely one of the tasks that touched me the most. I was so surprised to see elderly people who were so positive about life despite being sick and without their families. The whole experience made me less fearful of growing old and eventually dying.”

But not all the tasks have had the same effect on Thulo. She counts recycling as one of the things she hopes to never do again.

“It was just physically draining. We spent hours picking up litter and then sorting it from plastic, glass and paper. It’s very laborious work and at the end you get very little money for it.”

On working with Somizi Mhlongo, Thulo says: “He is the funniest person I have ever met. He has taught me not to take myself too seriously and to enjoy myself with everything I do. At the same time he is very certain of the person he is and doesn’t compromise it.”

The biggest surprise for her since joining the show was Bongani Fassie, who she’d not met prior to the show.

“I always thought he was a wild musician who thought too much of himself. But he is actually the complete opposite. Between the three of us, he is the one who works hardest and wants to deliver the most. I really admire his work ethic.”

Having been on three reality shows this year, Thulo is more selective about the one she would sign up for next. “A show about my life would be very awkward for me,” she says with a laugh.”