Don’t tell me how to cry – Gugu Zulu’s wife

Letshego Zulu has come out to defend herself from criticism she received on social media by some who felt she should have been mourning her late husband, Gugu Zulu, instead of “doing PR”.

Speaking to TMG Entertainment on Thursday, Zulu said she would not be dictated to on how to mourn her husband.

She told the website she was celebrating her husband’s life, and believed no one should dictate nor impose their traditional ways of grieving on her.

On Wednesday, Zulu conducted her first interview since her husband’s death. She spoke to Anele Mdoda on Real Talk, sharing her earliest memories of Gugu.

On how they met, Letshego said she met Gugu through a friend of hers who was dating a rally driver 15 years ago when she was in grade 11. Her friend met Gugu, and later told Letshego she had found the perfect man for her. Letshego said she did not hesitate to take Gugu’s number and started texting him immediately. “I was literally stalking him.”

The two texted for seven months after that before their first date, and “everything just fell into place”.

After the date, her husband told her he was in the relationship for the long haul, “and he was”.

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Reiterating her words at his memorial service, Letshego said her husband was never the reason for her tears. In fact, when she was sad, he would work hard to put a smile on her face. “He soothed my pain.”

She told Mdoda she recently went back to church for the first time without him, an experience that took her by surprise because she had no one to hold hands with. Though she is still in pain, she only cries because she misses him.

Gugu died after experiencing breathing problems while trying to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in July. He, along with his wife, were two of 46 South Africans who were attempting to summit the highest free-standing mountain in the world for the Trek4Mandela campaign to raise funds to buy sanitary towels for needy girls across the country.

READ MORE >> Gugu Zulu dies while climbing Kilimanjaro