Macheso family paying the price of fame

By Nigel Pfunde

Everyday the courts are filled with couples filing for divorce, maintenance disputes and other legal battles, but the media takes a blind eye on these cases because the individuals involved do not make news.

For the past two weeks, ace sungura musician Alick Macheso’s family has been embroiled in legal battles involving the head of the house himself, and then the daughter.

Macheso’s daughter Sharon first successfully filed for a protection order against her abusive husband of three months, Kudakwashe Munetsi.

She subsequently filed for divorce on the same day her father applied for a downward variation of monthly maintenance fees he is obliged to pay to ex-wife, Tafadzwa Mapako, at the Harare Civil Courts.

He prayed that the current $750 he was paying monthly to Mapako be reduced to $300 because his income had dwindled in the face of economic challenges in the country.

The legal warfare involving the Machesos have been under intense media scrutiny, including some supposedly private matters of the amorous realm being splashed in newspapers.

The legal warfare involving father and daughter are all suggestive that they might be unlucky in love.

About two months ago, another sad story in which Sharon’s sibling was victimised before justice took its toll on the perpetrators is also in the public domain.

Not that the fourth estate has any qualms with the Macheso family, but they are simply paying the price of fame.

Fame is an odd situation and seems rather ‘paradoxical’, it comes with an interesting package. It either brings you fortune and misery such that some famous people even regret their status.

Even Sharon herself at one time confessed that she regrets her father’s fame.

Maxwell Bhake, a sociology student at the University of Zimbabwe said most people wish to be famous but once they achieve that, they tend to regret.

“These celebrities and famous people begin their lives no different than anyone else, with a wish to become popular. They spend years of their lives climbing the mountain to reach the top, the zion of fame. Once they reach the top and start drinking from the fountain of fame, they simply turn around and regret being famous anymore.

“Look at Sharon Macheso now, her father’s fame is a catalyst in her pending divorce, that’s an ugly fact.

“I was reading that her husband said she was a media monger, this is because she grew up with all the attention on her as Alick Macheso’s daughter, and that affected her psyche,” said Bhake.

It is clear that fame brought  Macheso some fortune that saw him acquire several properties and vehicles.

However, it is the same fame that is ‘haunting’ him, and troubles are mounting.

It started when he was hoodwinked by Tafadzwa, whom he met at a live show.

The woman later undressed, him in public with unconfirmed reports that she also extorted him, purporting to have close links with the First Family.

He then sent Sharon to a university in China and after only a semester, she was back after Macheso reportedly struggled to pay tuition fees.

Sharon could have gone to a local university but because of her father’s fame and status – she opted for the more fancied foreign ‘varsity’.

Macheso has, however, exhibited a resilient spirit and sometimes brushes his fame away.

With all these mounting legal battles and destabilisation in his family, some say he can work it in his favour  and pen songs that mirror his situation.

Over the years, Macheso has mastered the knack of seeking divine intervention when pressure mounts.

When things went off the rail a few years ago, he released Samasimba off Kwatakabva Mitunhu album.

The song has deep lyrics of a lost soul seeking supernatural powers to soldier on in the face of spiritual weariness and fatigue.

He also released Tafadzwa at the time he was still ‘madly’ in love with his ex-wife.

The song confirms the saying that ‘new found love is like a brand new toy’ because then, Macheso waxed lyrical about Tafadzwa.

Macheso is not the only celeb who has been a victim of fame.

Sulu Chimbetu, Dino Mudondo, Progress Chipfumo and Pastor Robert Gumbura all paid the price of fame. The Zimbabwe Mail