How Sello Maake kaNcube exposed me to HIV – wife 

Actor Sello Maake kaNcube’s wife Pearl Mbewe has broken her silence about how the thespian exposed her to HIV and the trauma she suffered as a result of the dreadful discovery of his infection.  

Mbewe has also accused Maake kaNcube of leading the public down the garden path about the date on which he tested HIV positive.  

Mbewe decided to lift the lid on the matter after Maake ka Ncube told Sunday Times last week that he tested HIV positive last year when the two were trying to make their first baby.  

Speaking to Sunday Word, Mbewe, who had pressed and withdrawn criminal charges against Maake kaNcube for, among others, exposing her to HIV and Aids, said they started having unprotected sex after the thespian assured her that he was HIV negative, saying he had just tested negative shortly after they started dating.  

“Three months after breaking up with the father of my kid, I went to test because I did not want to find myself carrying a child of my ex or jumping into another relationship without knowing my HIV status. My pregnancy and HIV results came out negative.

So when he told me that he too was negative, I naively believed him,” she said.  

Mbewe said she and Maake kaNcube bonked like rabbits on steroids after they tied the knot because he told her that he wanted to have a child born in wedlock, saying all his other children were born outside matrimony.

“I also wanted to make him an heir, more so because he was my husband and I loved him to bits.”  

Mbewe said after several rolls in the hay, they both became worried and asked themselves why she was not conceiving.

She said they then decided to see a fertility specialist, who, after running a battery of tests, gave them medication to improve her chances to conceive.  

The gynaecologist, said Mbewe, also suggested that they undergo HIV tests to check if it was not a contributing factor to her difficulty to be preggies, especially because of the actor’s age, who is 64 years old.  

This they did in 2021 and not in 2023, as the former Scandal actor claimed in the media last week.

“When the results came back two or three days later, the gynaecologist phoned him and told him that he wanted to see him to discuss the results.

He then asked the gynaecologist to tell him on the phone. The gynaecologist then broke the news to him and told him that his results came back positive.  

“My husband then asked about my results, and the gynaecologist told him that he will share the results with me. By God’s grace my results were negative” she said.  

Mbewe said despite her nega-tive results, she was hypochondriac and traumatised.

She said she then asked him if he was telling the truth when he told her that he had tested negative before they started their dalliance.  

She said in their next physical consultation, they were both given several options for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), including harvesting her eggs.  

Mbewe said the gynaecologist advised Maake kaNcube to start taking antiretroviral drugs until his viral load was reduced or undetectable.

Mbewe did research on behalf of Maake kaNcube and found him a HIV specialist in Sandton, who requested that they should both do more tests before beginning with treatment, she said.  

“My test results once more came back negative, and his came back positive again.

The doctor told him that his viral load was about 7 000 and his CD4 count was 200.

The doctor advised him that if he did not begin treatment immediately, he would get so sick and possibly die.

The doctor told me that if I continued to have unprotected sex with him, I might also contract the virus.

We have been using protection ever since.  

“It was only last year that we tested to check his viral load and establish that it was not detectable and transmittable.

He then indicated that since we paid over R150 000 for the IVF, we must proceed with treatment because he desperately wanted a child with me.

But then, since the tests, he started acting weird and telling me that I’m arrogant, assertive and was not submitting to him because ‘I have special genes’.  

“My sin and the downfall of our marriage was because, ‘unfortunately’, I didn’t contract the virus.

If I had also tested positive, my estranged husband would not have started showing signs of envy towards me and telling me that I’m the only ‘special woman’ he has slept with in the recent years because ‘I have special genes’,” she said.  

“Sello must stop lying and soliciting public sympathy in my name. I have all the proof to [refute] all his lies. Not in my name!”