adminZBCtv reality show ZimPunkd has torched a storm over one of its practical jokes where the crew used a nostril cancer stricken 14-year-old girl as bait to fool a local celebrity.The ZimPunkd crew lured singer Ammara Brown to attend a “handover” ceremony of donated cash to Sandra Chamanga – a cancer patient who had previously appeared in various media appealing for financial assistance.
Brown, who had indicated her desire to help raise funds for the young girl to undergo chemotherapy, readily made herself available for the handover ceremony at the Holiday Inn in Harare that was never to be.
Upon arrival at the venue, Brown was interviewed by a man claiming to be a journalist who insulted her about her music hoping to get a reaction from her. She responded saying: “Well that’s fine. This isn’t about me. This isn’t a publicity stunt. It is about a little girl who needs surgery,” before she stormed out of the room.
When she walked back in with support from Tatea – a member of Celebrities Combined, she was informed that she had just been pranked.
According to her, she broke down and shed tears and did not know what to say to the crew besides: “That is horrible. Do you realise a little girl’s life is at stake here?”
Brown said she was heartbroken and disappointed with the way the crew managed to see a joke in the whole thing.
“I was and still am very disappointed with what they did because after the news, we were really happy to have finally gotten the money to help the girl. But when I was later told it was a prank, I literally cried thinking people could see a joke in the whole issue.
“I was really heartbroken by what they did and I’m very disappointed,” she said.
However, ZimPunkd director Clive Mandizha said a text message was sent to Brown inviting her to the “handover ceremony” saying the prank was not about Sandra, but to talk about Brown’s controversial new video Crucify Me.
“A text was sent with the intention of only bringing Ammara over. The guy who sent the text has since resigned after seeing that he should have found a better way of luring the singer.
“The truth, however, is that Ammara loves attention and that is exactly what she is trying to seek here by creating controversy because she is aware that we wanted to talk about her new video Crucify Me which is even more controversial,” he said.
Mandizha said to illustrate that Brown was an attention seeker, after the shooting, the singer had photographs taken with the ZimPunkd crew indicating that there were no hard feelings.
“Ammara wants to taint us for reasons best known to her but I think she is pushing some different agenda altogether. I do not understand why she didn’t make it known that she was not happy because she actually posed for photos with the crew after we had told her she was ZimPunkd. Better still, we never mentioned Sandra’s story but now she wants to make us look very insensitive and inhumane.
“It’s really a mystery why she would do that because the truth is we are also part of the organisation Celebrity Combined which is working towards raising funds needed to help Sandra.
“To add on, Sandra’s family was not aware of all this but she claims they had been notified,” he said.
One of Zimbabwe’s top comedians, Carl Joshua Ncube, who is Brown’s close friend, took issue with the way the ZimPunkd crew handled the matter saying even the family of the girl had been informed of the development which turned out to be a prank.
“The guys were just irresponsible in taking such a delicate issue as a joke. Many of us who had been helping around were truly excited to learn that someone was actually making full donations to the cause. To make matters worse, the girl’s family had been informed about the donation and many people had started praying for the same cause.
“What they did was truly irresponsible and the crew should apologise to the family, the celebrity involved and the nation for what they have done,” said the comedian.
Meanwhile, the social media is awash with messages condemning the ZimPunkd crew’s actions with many noting that it was in bad taste considering that someone’s life was and still is at stake. – Harare Bureau/Showbiz Reporter
derick.khumalo