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EVITA VS BAMBI

artSMart exclusive interview with Evita Bezuidenhout and Bambi Kellermann

– Caroline Smart, artSMart, 12 December 2011

This year, Pieter-Dirk Uys has facilitated two publications on behalf of personalities very close to him: Evita’s BlackBessie by Evita Bezuidenhout, the most famous white woman in South Africa, and Never Too Naked by her younger sister, Bambi Kellermann.

However, the boxing gloves are out as the Poggenpoel sisters take their sibling rivalry into the publishing world, with Bambi’s new ‘tell-all’ sexual memoir threatening to outsell Evita’s BlackBessie.

A press release informs that Bambi was instructed by her publishers (Zebra Press) to send an advance copy of the book to Evita for approval just days before its release. Rumour has it that Evita has asked her lawyers to look into the matter as she plans to sue her sister for libel if any harm is done to her public persona by ‘publishing utter lies’.

"I am disgusted by the lies and fabrications that I have been told about. I will not read that book, Evita says firmly in an exclusive interview with artSMart. “I believe she pretends to like me through her sarcasm. I'd rather be hugged by a Gaddafi." Talking about the rift between them, Evita considers that sex is what caused it: “The way she used it to humiliate our existence as Christians and civilized Afrikaners. She makes us all look cheap. And everyone is very complimentary about her sense of humour, indicating that I have none. Thank heavens, if that means I'm not like her."

artSMart turned to Bambi for response and she replied with her usual vigour: “There is no rift. I just know that she hates me so much, that she and I will never ever be seen in the same place at the same time. That's quite a relief."

While Never too Naked charts Bambi’s sexual exploits, it also reminds us of historic highlights over the last 60 years or so. However, she shrugs off a suggestion that she could be considered a knowledgeable historian: "Goodness me, no. I was known as a Grand Horizontal in Europe and maybe because I saw life from that angle I remember the details. The story is just my life, not that of a nation, but its fingerprints are all over me. I am Bambi Kellermann, international chameleon. I just wished I had more languages. They are the skeleton key to life's many locks."

Evita only allocates one photograph to Bambi in her Evita’s BlackBessie, calling her sister “a thorn” in her side. “How sweet of her,” sneers Bambi. “I include about six of her in mine."

Looking back on their lives now, would either sister have done anything differently? Evita is the first to answer: "I could have changed our history by putting rat poison into John Vorster's chicken, battery acid in PW Botha's tomato cocktail or arsenic in the cake I sent Mandela in prison. I didn't do those things then, so why should I want to do them now?"

Bambi considers the question more carefully: "I would have allowed myself to be more inquisitive. Not be so afraid. Suffering from the disease to please. I wished I had told the world to 'gaan kak' many, many years sooner than I did. But it's never too late."

Will Evita and Bambi ever be reconciled? “If they promise not to involve me in any way,” was Pieter-Dirk Uys’ prompt reply.

For reviews on the two books in question click on these links:

Never Too Naked —  Evita’s Blackbessie

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