Authors: Mandy Wiener
Samantha was already a successful model and recalls taking Reeva with her to a shoot in 2009. âI asked her to come along because it was kind of like a specialist thing. It was underwater modelling and the photographer was looking to put a team together that he could use. I said to her, “Come with,” and she was so self-conscious in her bikini and she didn't want to do anything. If I look back at the photos, she was a bit heavier than she was when she died. It was funny because modelling was her whole life for the latter part of her life, but back then she didn't actually get that much work.'
At the time, Reeva was modelling for the Ice agency and was working with her boyfriend, Warren Lahoud, in his company. The Lebanese, with dark features, a boyish face and pristine smile, ran a successful fruit-and-vegetable supply business. Reeva had been applying to do articles at various law firms in Joburg. But because she had taken off several years to try to break into the modelling industry after university, she was repeatedly turned down for articles. She also attempted to do her pupillage to become an advocate but was unsuccessful. âAll the firms she had applied to, they all looked at her like she was some Barbie and told her you can't just pull in after eight years,' recalls Samantha.
In a 2011 interview with blog site The Bucket, Reeva spoke about her decision to move to Joburg from Port Elizabeth and weighing up a career in modelling versus the law:
I landed a contract as the Face of Avon cosmetics and was flying to and from PE every other week ⦠and decided I needed to be based in a more metropolitan city with more contact in the industry. I made appointments with several agencies but Jayn from Ice called me up one day (I was having lunch at Moyo off Jan Smuts) and she refused to put the phone down until I walked into her Rosebank offices. So I paid the bill
and stayed on the line with her until I literally walked into Ice Models. The deal was sealed instantly and I made arrangements to move to Jhb.
During my final year of Law, I had a horse-riding accident and broke my back. After some time in hospital and with some rehabilitation, I returned to classes and made the decision to never let go of my dreams and aspirations. With this in mind, I attained my degree instead of taking a year off for rest and pursued my dreams of becoming a model in the big city. I could've been in a wheelchair but I was blessed to recover fully from the tragic experience.
I intend writing my bar exams next year whilst getting away once or twice a month to shoot local/international work. I want to be a qualified advocate before I'm 30 so it's important that I stay focused and academically diligent over the next year without a hectic modelling schedule.
From Reeva's application to do pupillage at the Johannesburg Bar, it's evident that she valued the principles of justice and was motivated to practise law, but she knew she would face challenges with her career:
I realise that a long period of time has lapsed between my graduating and making this application, but I am a fast learner and an eager student. I believe I have the ability to fall back into legal mind under the pressure of my will to succeed. I chose to alter my path after graduating after I broke my back in a horseriding accident and survived paralysis. I decided to travel the world and be a model whilst I was still young and healthy enough to do so. It is now, however, my intention to become a student of law once again.
Her application also contains her matric certificate and the results of various terms at NMMU as well as an invitation to join the prestigious non-profit honour society Golden Key. While her Grade 12 results were mediocre â she achieved Bs and Cs across the board â she regularly achieved distinctions at university.
In a 2012 interview with
Weekend Post
newspaper in Port Elizabeth, Reeva reflected on her decision to pursue modelling rather than be admitted to the Bar:
At the end of last year I made an application to the Bar. It was a nervewracking experience. As I walked out I got the call for the FHM shoot
as well as two others. I made a decision to take the modelling shoots. I believe in destiny and faith.
Reeva's modelling success would come with time and weight loss, as fellow Port Elizabethan and then editor of
FHM
magazine Hagen Engler recalled in a column in the Daily Maverick days after she died:
Reeva had been an aspiring teen model when we met previously. I might have been judging her at a âFaces of the future'-type model search in PE. In the end her break came when she was selected to represent Avon cosmetics.
After school, I lost track of her. By the time our paths crossed again in the casting room, she'd apparently studied law, and was running a fresh-produce business with her then-boyfriend.
Thrilled to see her, we weren't able to cast her that time. Though her personality sparkled like the night sky, she was carrying a bit of extra weight. Still sexy, though. She was a contender, but we didn't choose her for that particular calendar.
The next year, she was back, and in shape. She must have lost 10â15 kg at least, which is significant in the superficial world of bikini modelling. I don't think she made that calendar either. Something about too many blondes, or too pale. Like I say, it's a superficial world.
Undeterred, she came back the following year. And then. Then! That was the charm. She had trained herself to flawless super-fitness, was tanned and taut, but what set her apart was the attitude â that same knowing wink. She knew what this game was all about, and she was willing to play it. To train up, be flirtatious on video, bring that indefinable sexiness in the eyes, strike the awkward poses.
So there she was. On the calendar shoot for Bazaruto Island, Mozambique, where it was immediately clear she was one of the most beautiful models on the island. Her TV interviews were smart and sassy, striking just the right balance between one-of-the-guys humour and sassy coquettishness.
She didn't make the calendar cover, but we made a mental note to get her on the FHM cover as soon as possible.
That eventually happened in December 2011, where we shot at a hotel pool on the roof of Joburg. Reeva nailed it, and was fun to work with, if a little nervous about her first cover shoot.
We were impressed, and there was this vibe of, âWow, this girl deserves to be more famous!'
Samantha laughs as she exclaims about all the attempts they made at cracking the
FHM
calendar over the years, knowing what it would mean for their careers.
âReeva and I always had this joke that we had been to the
FHM
calendar casting eight times in the last eight years. We get told to go but every year we get told, “Your boobs are too big” or “You're too skinny,” so we always thought, What's the point? But we ended up going anyway and the one year she got it, and that marked the start of her career. She then got the cover and from there she really worked hard. It wasn't just a case of doing shoots; it was a lot about creating this public persona for herself.'
Samantha says that while Reeva was committed to getting her body into shape, it certainly wasn't achieved through sweat and hours in the gym. âI don't remember her losing the weight. She just started watching what she ate. She used to gym with me, but she used to do five little things and she'd be like, “Okay, I'm going to take a break now,” so I always used to say to her, “Your body didn't come from gymming, it came from dieting.” She was cute, she used to have a little routine: she would go to gym or she would skip at home or something â she wasn't the biggest die-hard gym fan.'
When Reeva featured on the
FHM
cover towards the end of 2011, she was still dating Warren. The two had been living together for around three and a half years but the distance between them had grown.
After Reeva and Warren broke up, she was a free agent but Samantha was already dating the successful entrepreneur Justin Divaris, owner of the luxury lifestyle company Daytona Group, which sells flashy high-end cars such as McLaren and Aston Martin. Samantha and Reeva spent a lot of their free time together, meeting for tea on Mondays at the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton and going on adventures.
âShe was very similar to me. I'm an only child. She was very much a
laat lammetjie
[“late lamb”, born long after other children in a family]. She was kind of my go-to person for virtually anything, and vice versa. We used to see each other at least three times a week and have tea and a catch-up. Our weekly thing was to go to the Michelangelo and sit and have tea and scones and we had the same waiter all the time and the scones were heart-shaped and we used to sit there and be all proper.
âWe would do the strangest stuff together,' says Samantha as she vividly remembers taking Reeva to get her first tattoo â tiny, stencilled initials on her wrist. It would be the first of three she would get on her body.
âShe decided she wanted to get her first tattoo and I had just come back from modelling in Taiwan and I got my first tattoo on the back of my neck and she said, “No, I want to get it done.”' The two had yet to meet legendary Parkhurst tattoo artist Pepe â who has inked Joburg's finest, from celebrities to hit men to sports stars â so they took a drive to a parlour in Festival Mall in Kempton Park.
âWe trek out there and we've made an appointment and Reeva didn't have the strongest stomach. The minute she sees blood, she starts to go woozy. We walked into the tattoo parlour, and it had a very sterile smell and immediately when she walked in, she started â¦' Samantha breathes deeply, mimicking her friend's exasperated reaction. âI don't think she knew what she wanted and then eventually she decided on her grandfather's initials. The tattoo that she ended up getting was on her wrist and it was tiny. It was literally like pencil lines, three initials. I had to go and buy her Coke because she was feeling woozy and she sat looking away but it's quite funny because after that she became a bit obsessed with tattoos.'
Reeva's second tattoo was bold text across her back saying âOnly God can judge' in Italian, another nod to her grandfather who was of Italian heritage. The two tattoos illustrated her affection for her late grandfather, which was echoed in a tweet posted on 30 December 2012: âToday I wish I could pick up the phone and call my grandfather. He had the answers to everything! Who would you call that you can't now?'
The third tattoo was on her left ankle â cursive script reading âLioness' to acknowledge her star sign, Leo. On Twitter she explained her choice with the hashtag
#projectink.
âAbundance and power are yours, for you are the lioness' and âThe lionesses are the hunters for their pride and execute their skills with precision and complex teamwork', she tweeted.
Having broken up with Warren, with whom she had shared a flat, Reeva was looking for a new home. In mid-2011, she moved in with her close friend, make-up artist Gina Myers, and her family who live in a large facebrick and peach home in Sandringham. Gina had met Reeva six years previously while doing make-up for a fashion show at Fashion TV in Sandton. Reeva was interviewing her about her craft for FTV International. âShe then hired me for a job for the same company and later I saw her at a shoot where I did her make-up for her and it was inseparable from then.'
Gina's parents, Cecil and Desi, invited their daughter's friend to live with them. âShe had to move out of her apartment and she had a whole bunch of shoots and she was going to Cape Town for work and she wasn't here much and she was already so much a part of our family that my dad and my mom said to
her, “Please, just move in with us, just for a couple of months. You're travelling so much you're hardly going to be at home anyway, we'd love you to come stay with us.” It was so much fun. It was coffee together every single morning. Tea in bed every single night. It was really nice. It was a lot of fun.'
Reeva forged a tight bond with both Gina and her sister Kim, who affectionately referred to her as âAlfie'. Gina giggles as she recounts why the name, a reference to a character from the classic comedy
The Little Rascals
, stuck: âWhenever she put her hair in a pony, she had these little pieces of hair that kept sticking out, it's new hair growth, but they would never stay down. And the one night there was so much wind that all these pieces of hair were just flying everywhere, so I started calling her Alfalfa, and of course it shortened to Alfie and Alf.
Gina's mother, Desi Myers, speaks highly of Reeva and lauded her for âcooking for the family, always keeping her room spotless and always letting us know when she was coming home or not when she left the house, although she rarely stayed out overnight. Mostly Reeva stayed home, working on her computer, cleaning her room and bathroom. She went to various meetings during the day and a few events at night. I would say that other than the time she spent with Oscar â from January 2013 when we returned from our annual holiday â Reeva spent most nights at home watching TV and/or talking and laughing with Kim and Gina.'
Regardless of who one speaks to about Reeva, they are astonishingly complimentary, and not with the ânever speak ill of the dead' type of generosity. There appears to be a genuinely deep affection for her amongst her friends who describe her as âbeautiful' and âspecial'.
âI love that when she felt so passionately about something and she loved it, and when she was really speaking from her heart, she used to put her hand on her heart and her eyes would look up and she would just be so ⦠and you knew that's exactly how she felt,' remembers Gina emotionally. âHer hand gestures, the way she spoke. I think that's why she was always my person that I called. I could trust her to really tell me the truth and it was always going to come out sincere.'