'I'm baffled!': South African Lion King actor says he could not have told Meghan her wedding was like Mandela's release
1 September 2022, 06:14 | Updated: 1 September 2022, 16:50
A South African actor who appeared in The Lion King has said he is "baffled" by Meghan Markle's claim that she was told by a member of that production that her wedding to Harry was celebrated like Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
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The Duchess of Sussex has been sharply criticised for recounting her recollection of the claim in an interview with The Cut magazine.
She said a member of The Lion King's cast told her at the London 2019 premiere that her wedding had triggered similar scenes of jubilation to the release of Mr Mandela, an event that came with the peaceful transition of the country from its division of apartheid.
But Dr John Kani, who voiced Rafiki in the Disney remake, has said he did not attend the showing in Leicester Square and was the only South African on the cast.
Meghan had told The Cut how a South African, who she did not name, spoke to her at the 2019 event.
"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 way we did when Mandela was freed from prison'," she said.
The comment led to ridicule and criticism.
Dr Kani told MailOnline: "I have never met Meghan Markle. This seems like something of a faux pas by her.
"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."
He added: "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."
Her wedding to Harry was a "non-event" and "no big deal" in South Africa, the Black Panther actor said, unfavourably comparing Mr Mandela's release – the day "the world stopped" – with "Miss Meghan or whatever marrying into royalty" which "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?' he said.
'People dislike Meghan Markle because she destroyed their Disney princess fantasy.’
"You can't really say where you were when Meghan married Harry."
But he added that he did not want to view it as an insult and instead chalked it up as a "faux pas" and a mix up on the Duchess's part.
His reaction follows comments by Zwelivelile Mandela, the grandson of Mr Mandela, who told MailOnline: "My advice to everyone is to live the life Nelson Mandela lived and support the causes he supported.
"That is the ultimate litmus test. What is the value of people dancing in the street and chanting President Nelson Mandela's name when what they stand for is diametrically opposed to what he stood for?
"Madiba's [Mr Mandela'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 the same."
The African National Congress MP, who is also chief of Mr Mandela's Mvezo traditional council, said the release of his grandfather was more important than her marriage to "a white prince".
