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Book lays bare SA celebs' sordid doings
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May 30, 2009
By Kashiefa Ajam
Yolanda Barnard isn't expecting any legal threats from celebrities she features in her tell-all book because she is confident everything she has written is the truth.
Die Ponies Galop: Seks en Skandale van die Sterre Onthul (Tabloid Frenzy: Sex and Scandals of the Stars Revealed) has angered many local celebrities since news spread of its imminent release… but not one has threatened legal action; well at least not yet.
"I don't believe anyone will challenge me legally. Because if they do, they have to prove and have evidence that the information is not true," she says.
Barnard says as a tabloid reporter, she wrote many stories "scandalous stories" about many famous people. "I kept a diary of everything that happened to me. I wrote down everything - all the things people told me."
Some of the well-known South Africans featured in the book include model Minki van der Westhuizen, Springbok and Bulls rugby player Bryan Habana, former rugby player Joost van der Westhuizen and Afrikaans singers Robbie Klay and Jurie Els.
She claims to have had an interview with Van der Westhuizen's wife Amor Vittone and have knowledge of why Els and his wife, former Springbok athlete Hestrie Cloete, left South Africa.
"People are accusing me of writing lies to sell a book. But that is one of the qualities I hate the most in people," she says.
"I believe that people have a right to know certain things about celebrities," she says.
"Celebrities who do bad things like drugs and orgies in their homes are quite different to those who do them in bars and parking lots. Those are public areas.
"And when you are brazen enough to do scandalous things in public, I'm sorry, but you are fair game."
A number of the celebrities featured in the book have already denied Barnard's claims. - Pretoria News Weekend
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