TV Host Jamal Gaddafi: Mzazi and I have no beef

A little over six months ago he was just the 25-year hunk on a reality show, looking to win. He stepped on to the screen an unknown person but walked out of the grueling popular KTN reality show, The Presenter, with a show of his own.

Now five months on with a Best Dressed TV Personality award to his name, Jamal Gaddafi is growing into one of those household names in TV entertainment.

And then the controversy starts.

Just last month, it was rumoured and reported on various sections of the media that the slinky looking hotshot was at odds with Mseto East Africa’s Mzazi Willy M Tuva. Now, both have come out speaking about their perceived TV rivalry.

In an interview with Pulse, Jamal said the beef was a creation of some rubble rouser journalist who called him and fabricated a story. Jamal told Pulse that for years, Willy M Tuva has been his role model, and the whole situation hurts him.

“I started listening to Mzazi when I was in Form Two. Even during The Presenter, I said it live on TV that he is my role model. In fact he is more, he’s like a parent to me,” said Jamal.

Describing to Pulse the genesis of the supposed fall-out, Jamal said he saw a Tweet suggesting he was copying Tuva, which he favourited just as Tuva had done. After that, a Mombasa-based journalist he identified as Jacob called him with all manner of allegations.

“He said that Tuva had said some bad things about me, and I did not take it well. But I chose not to act,” said Jamal.

According to Jamal, after the fall-out played out on Twitter and entertainment blogs, he went to Tuva and apologised over the incident, insisting that to him, Tuva is more than a mentor.

“There is no competition. He is Messi and I am Neymar. There is a lot he has done which, I am still trying to do and I look up to him,” he added.

In a separate Interview on Radio Maisha’s show Nuru Ya Lugha, Mzazi Willy M Tuva who was the guest at Ali Hassan Kaulei’s show said the rumoured fall-out really peeved him because he knew it was all false.

In the interview, Tuva said he had even met Jamal’s mother before and spoke with her at length about how much he appreciates her son’s talent. Explaining how he liked the tweet, Tuva said that in the flurry of activity of social media, he absent-mindedly favourited it but meant no harm, something he had already explained to Jamal.

“He is a talent I can say I look forward to. This was all a lie created by someone who wanted traffic and readership but is wrong,” said Tuva.

“All that is just hot air, nothing in it,” he added.

Also, Tuva noted that Jamal was one of the shining stars who were doing something great in the entertainment industry.

Other than hosting his show Mzuka, the sonorous voiced Jamal has also taken up Straight Up on KTN, which he has been hosting for the past month. He told Pulse that he had his own plans for entertainment, which he believes will be mind-blowing.

“I have a lot planned ahead, which I will accomplish, God willing. I want to do many big things and this is just a start,” said Jamal.