Mystery over Meghan Markle’s Nelson Mandela claims

An acclaimed actor and friend of Nelson Mandela on Wednesday told MailOnline he is ‘baffled’ by the Duchess of Sussex’s suggestion that his country had ‘rejoiced’ when she married Prince Harry – and revealed he has never met her despite claiming to be the only South African member of the cast in Disney’s recent remake of The Lion King. Dr John Kani believes the Duchess of Sussex has made ‘a faux pas’ after she used a US magazine interview to imply her 2018 royal wedding sparked celebrations in South Africa reminiscent of the release of his friend Madiba, the legendary anti-apartheid leader.

He said Mr Mandela’s walk to freedom after 27 years was a ‘landmark moment’ while her marriage to Prince Harry was ‘no big deal’ in South Africa, adding that the two events ‘cannot be spoken in the same breath’ and ‘you can’t really say where you were when Meghan married Harry’.

The bombshell interview in The Cut suggested Meghan had been told the opposite by a male South African cast member at the London premiere of the Lion King live action film held in 2019. It reported the Duchess as saying: ‘He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, “I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison”.’

But Dr Kani, a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company who voiced the mandrill shaman Rafiki, told MailOnline that he was the only South African in the Disney movie, has never met Meghan and was not at the UK premiere.

He said the only other South African who was involved was Lebo M, a composer who together with Hans Zimmer was responsible for the music for The Lion King. But Lebo M was not in the cast.

Sitting under a portrait of his friend Mr Mandela at his Johannesburg home, he said: ‘I have never met Meghan Markle. This seems like something of a faux pas by her. I have I have never met the Duchess at all. I am the only South African member of the cast and I did not attend the premiere in London.

‘I went to Hollywood as we opened there and from there I had to go immediately to Paris where I was shooting a film sequel, so I couldn’t hang around. The only South African was me playing Rafiki. But I did not go to the opening in Leicester Square as I didn’t have the time to do that. It just may be a mis-remembering on her side.

‘It is baffling me. I am the only South African in the cast. I play Rafiki, Seth Rogen plays Pumbaa, Donald Glover plays Simba and Beyonce plays Nala.’

The actor insisted that Harry and Meghan’s nuptials were ‘no big deal’ in his country, adding: ‘I cannot even tell you now what month she married or what year’.

Dr Kani said he did not believe that the people of South Africa celebrated Meghan’s marriage to Prince Harry on the scale that greeted the release of anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela as claimed by her.

He said: ‘In my memory, nobody would have known when she got married, when or what. We had no South African link to the wedding or to her marrying Harry.’

He said: ‘I am truly surprised by this. For me it is a non-event, the whole thing’.

MailOnline has approached the Sussexes and Disney about his claims. The Cut declined to comment. ‘The world stopped in February 11 1990. The entire country and most of the people born in the seventies didn’t know what Mr Mandela looked like.

‘When the gates of Pollsmoor opened, the entire South African nation, the entire African continent and the world were glued.

‘We only realised that he was the one walking next to Winnie when he raised his hand and we said “Oh, that’s him” because none of us had seen Mr Mandela since 1964’.

‘That was a world event. Surely Miss Meghan or whatever marrying into royalty cannot in any way be spoken in the same breath or even the same sentence as that moment. ‘It lives in our memories forever to the world. It is a kind of “Where were you when JFK was shot…where were you when Nelson Mandela was released”?

‘You can’t really say where you were when Meghan married Harry.

‘I am confused about this. She is an important person in her own life.

‘But there are various opinions all over the world about them severing their ties with the Royal Family and Harry not being able to serve and do his normal duties and their moving to America and the interviews with Oprah Winfrey and all that. We’ve been following that story with interest really, but that is all.

‘But beyond that I don’t know her, never met her and wasn’t in London and I am the only South African actor in The Lion King.’

Kani, who directed programme for Mr Mandela, said he did not believe Meghan’s self-comparison to Mandela was an insult to South Africa.

‘There were so many people that came to South Africa who just wanted to meet with Nelson Mandela. ‘At one stage we were so bored about it, that we wanted to do a Mandela cardboard cut-out so that they could take a picture with the cardboard cut-out.

‘Mandela was an enigma to South Africa and he was an elder. There was that added cultural dimension in meeting with him.

‘You knew you were meeting an elder, more as a father than as a President. We used to call him “Dada” which means Daddy.

‘I really wouldn’t want to call it an insult. It must be a faux pas. There is something Meghan is mixing up with.’

Hours earlier Nelson Mandela’s grandson delivered a fresh attack on Meghan Markle and urged her to ‘pull up her sleeves’ and do more for ordinary people after she drew a comparison between her royal wedding day and Madiba’s walk from prison after 27 years of incarceration.

Zwelivelile ‘Mandla’ Mandela told MailOnline he was ‘surprised’ at her remarks in The Cut magazine when she claimed that three years ago a cast member of the Lion King told her that ‘we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’. He declared that ‘every day there are people who want to be Nelson Mandela, either comparing themselves with him or wanting to emulate him’.

Today he told The Times that his advice to the former actress was: ‘Get out there, pull up your sleeves and better the lives of ordinary people in England and in the United Kingdom’, adding: ‘For the personality she is, she can do a lot of good in the global community by adopting the causes that Madiba championed’.

The furore was sparked by a 6,409-word article called ‘Meghan of Montecito’ published yesterday, where the former Suits star recalled an encounter she had at the 2019 London premiere of a live-action version of the Disney classic.

She said an actor from South Africa pulled her aside and told her: ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’.

Mandla said that people across South Africa had rejoiced at his release in 1990, because his dramatic walk to freedom had signalled a victory over apartheid and colonialism. The African National Congress MP said his grandfather’s release was a moment of huge national significance, which should not be compared to the duchess’s 2018 marriage ‘to a white prince’.

He told MailOnline: ‘It can never be compared to the celebration of someone’s wedding. Madiba’s celebration was based on overcoming 350 years of colonialism with 60 years of a brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. So It cannot be equated to as the same.’ But MailOnline has learned that the story has astonished the Mandela family. ‘Mandla’ Mandela, an MP and Chief of the late South African President’s Mvezo tribe, said he was ‘surprised’ at her remarks.

His grandfather served 27 years in prison before being released and re-uniting opponents and going on to lead his country.

Zwelivelile said when the people of South Africa expressed their joy at his grandfather’s release and danced in the streets, it was for a far more important and serious reason than her marriage ‘to a white prince’.

The African National Congress MP added: ‘We are still bearing scars of the past. But they were a product of the majority of our people being brought out onto the streets to exercise the right of voting for the first time.

‘He spoke for oppressed minorities, children and women and protracting the most vulnerable people in our society. ‘He always spoke about oppressed nations around the globe and yet people are silent on those issues.

‘But this is what we like to see people when they regard themselves as being a “Nelson Mandela”. ‘Then you could be a champion of the causes that he represented.’