[imagesource: SurgeZirc Media]

Rapper Kiernan ‘AKA’  Forbes is coming out with “his side of the story” almost a month after the death of his fiancé, Anele ‘Nelli’ Tembe.

Tembe died at the age of 22 on April 11 after falling from the 10th floor of the Pepperclub Hotel in Cape Town.

While the police have opened an inquest into the exact cause of her death, a few accusations have been flying around.

Forbes says Tembe had been “chronically suicidal” long before that fateful night.

But images and videos posted by News24 and TimesLIVE reveal the possibility of violence in their relationship.

The News24 video, which was allegedly taken in March, shows AKA breaking through a door behind which Tembe was hiding. She handed the footage to a friend and said that he had smashed her head into a wall during the fight.

The TimesLIVE video is narrated by AKA speaking about how Tembe wanted to jump off the balcony and shows his Bryanston home in disarray, with awards smashed and glass broken.

Now, in an interview with Thembekile Mrototo, which aired on Saturday night, Forbes talks about “his side of the story”:

When Forbes was asked if he had ever hit Tembe, he replied, “I would never abuse Anele. I treated her like gold, she was my everything.”

He also spoke more about the abuse allegations:

“I understand what it looks like and understand that it’s something I need to own up to… I can only imagine how I must have frightened her.”

TimesLIVE has more on the claims of past suicide attempts:

AKA alleged Nelli had threatened to take her life on previous occasions, but could not speak to why her father, prominent businessman Moses Tembe publicly denied that Nelli was “chronically suicidal” during a tribute at her funeral service.

In response to some of the claims made in the interview, Moses said they were a very private family and just wanted the space to grieve their daughter.

In the interview, Forbes revealed more about what happened in the time leading up to her death:

“We sat down, we spoke and naturally we started disagreeing again, arguing and things got more heated – to the point where it went into the early hours of the morning…”

Forbes recounts that the discussion became so bad that he thought it best to book himself into a separate room:

“I told myself it would be best if I remove myself from the situation, and I gathered my belongings and booked myself into another room, hoping things would calm down. It got worse, she took off her ring and threw it at me. I came back to the room because I had taken her phone. Things took a turn for the worse where Anele kind of threatened to kill herself, jump off the balcony… she didn’t say it in those words though.”

Then he said he decided to call security from the bathroom:

“I called reception for security and I kind of tried to remove myself from the situation again – I think maybe out of panic – I didn’t want to be there so I went to the bathroom and when I came out of the bathroom, she wasn’t in the room.”

The rapper says that the exact details of the moment she supposedly jumped off the balcony is “a bit blurry”, and that he only fully realised what had happened when he looked over the top.

The nightmare hasn’t left him since:

“I’m in a state of grief and sadness. Anele is my whole life, my wife-to-be. I wake every day and I’m numb. I find it very hard to get up in the mornings and get through every day. There is so much noise around everything and it’s hard for me to get the time and peace to mourn and grieve.”

Forbes did admit to using drugs in the past, but claimed that he wasn’t using during his relationship with Tembe.

[source:timeslive]