What happened to Grace Mugabe? Everything you need to know
Grace Mugabe is the widow of the late Zimbabwean President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Besides being Zimbabwean’s First Lady (between 1996 and 2017), she is an established entrepreneur and politician. Since her husband’s demise, she has managed to stay out of the public limelight. Consequently, her political involvement has reduced significantly. So, What happened to Grace Mugabe?
Grace Mugabe, former Zimbabwean First Lady. Photo: @Bsd124fg
Source: Twitter
Grace Mugabe, popularly known as “Gucci Grace,” is a lady with an extraordinary story. Probably, some people did not believe that one day she could become an ordinary citizen. His deceased husband, Robert Mugabe, was an influential African politician who ruled Zimbabwe for three decades.
Grace was always by his side until he resigned in 2017. At some point, she indicated her interests to go for the top seat. However, tables turned when her husband passed away in 2019.
Who is Grace Mugabe?
She is the widow of the late Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean’s longest-serving president. Grace is the second wife of the late revolutionary leader. So, what happened to Mugabe’s first wife? She succumbed to kidney failure in January 1992. Her name was Sarah Francesca “Sally” Mugabe.
What nationality is Grace Mugabe? She is a Zimbabwean national. However, she was born and raised in Benoni, South Africa and partly in Rhodesia. Her birth name is Amai Grace Ntombizodwa Marufu, and she was born into a family of immigrant parents.
So, who are Grace Mugabe’s parents? The name of her mother is Ambuya Idah Marufu. On the other hand, the name of her father remains a mystery. Unfortunately, her mother passed away in 2018.
One may ask, is Grace Mugabe Zodwa Wabantu’s mother? No, she is not. Her children are Bona, Chatunga Bellarmine, Russell Goreraza, and Robert Perter Mugabe Jnr.
What happened to Grace Mugabe?
Nelson Chamisa (L) offering his condolences to Zimbabwe’s former first lady Grace Mugabe. Photo: Zinyange Auntony /AFP
Source: Getty Images
The death of Mugabe might have played a significant role in Grace Mugabe’s current life. She put her political ambitions aside to mourn her husband, who she had been married to for over two decades.
However, some of her critiques argue that she decided to keep a low profile because some people were planning to go after her. They wanted to sue her for multiple offences for the atrocities committed against them during her husband’s reign.
Also, unlike before, Grace does not make numerous trips outside the country for shopping, as was the case when Mugabe was alive. If you do not know, her unique love for Gucci products earned her the name “Gucci Grace.”
Her reduced trips speak volume, especially to people who know her well. In other words, she is not as influential as she used to be. So, what is the latest news about Grace Mugabe? Below are some of the stories that made headlines about the former Zimbabwean First Lady:
Land grabbing involvement case
Grace Mugabe was recently named in a land grabbing case involving a piece of land located in Borrowdale, a state property. She allegedly conspired with other influential state officials to grab the property. Together with Ignatius Chombo, they used undue procedure to acquire the land.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has been investigating her since the matter was raised. The commission has revealed some shocking information about the case.
For instance, it has been established that she divided the 50 000 square meters of land among his children and sister (Shuvai Gumbochuma). Grace Mugabe’s children named in the land saga are Bona Chikoore and Robert Jnr Mugabe.
Assault allegations
Former President Robert Mugabe (deceased) and his wife Grace posing for a photo after a press conference ahead of the election in 2018 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo: The Asahi Shimbun
Source: Getty Images
In 2018, she allegedly assaulted Gabriella Engels, a South African model. The incident happened in a Johannesburg hotel. Mrs Mugabe allegedly inflicted severe injuries on her, forcing her to report the matter to the South African authorities.
Gabriella Engels told the authorities that the former First Lady used an electric extension cord to beat her. However, due to her status, she was not arrested while on her trip to South Africa. Instead, the state offered her diplomatic immunity.
Later, the 55-year old denied the allegations made by Gabriella Engels. Instead, she alleged that the model tried to attack her without reason. She added that Engels was intoxicated when she tried to attack her. Thus, she acted in self-defence.
The SA government issued an arrest warrant for the former First Lady. This was after the model challenged the state’s decision in court, overturning the immunity offered to her. The two governments reportedly agreed to bring her to justice, but that did not happen. A few months later, Mugabe resigned from power after a military coup.
Farm invasion
Indeed, power is temporary. Grace is no longer powerful as she used to be during Mugabe’s reign. His late husband repossessed several pieces of land from white farmers under a controversial land reform program. Most of them were fertile, and some were rich in minerals such as gold.
Interestingly, they allegedly converted some of them to personal properties. One of such lands is the Smithfield property. The Mugabe’s converted it to a citrus farm. In 2018, illegal gold miners invaded the farm. Mrs Mugabe tried to stop them, but the court allowed them to proceed with the mining activities.
Where is Grace Mugabe now?
Following the death of her husband, Grace has allegedly been living in Mount Pleasant, Harare. Unlike before, she does not leave the villa often. According to The African Report, she took refuge in the villa in the company of her daughter, Bona.
The last time she was seen in public was during her husband’s burial, the former Zimbabwean President. The majority of her critiques, however, believe that she has been intentionally avoiding public appearances. They believe that she is afraid of the public’s reaction due to the atrocities committed against them by her family. Thus, it is impossible to find Grace Mugabe latest photos.
Indeed, what happened to Grace Mugabe after her husband’s death deeply affected her. She has been away from the public limelight since the send-off of Mugabe. Even so, she has been named in a few controversies since then.
Are you wondering what happened to Tila Tequila? Tuko.co.ke recently published an article about the Singaporean-born American television star. She had a huge fan base in the 2000s, appearing in a dating reality show titled A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.
Tequila Tequila was involved in a few controversies. For instance, she was kicked out of Twitter for supporting n*zism. Some of the controversies significantly contributed to her downfall. For years, she has stayed out of the public eye.
Source: Tuko Newspaper
Notes on a scandal: The real story of ‘Lady Gucci’
It is a lovely day of spring, March 27, 1995, as the clocks strike 8.30 am in Milan. At that very moment, Maurizio Gucci enters the downtown building where he works via Palestro 20. The 45-year-old businessman is elegantly dressed. He is the former chairman of Gucci, the last scion of a dynasty of designers who elevated stylish leather to a place of honour in high fashion. The family empire was founded in Florence in 1921 by his grandfather Guccio Gucci, who had five children, including Rodolfo and Aldo. Maurizio is the only son of Rodolfo, a former actor-turned-stylist, who designed the Flora scarf for Grace Kelly, a very loyal Gucci client.
Like any other morning, the porter Giuseppe Onorato greets Maurizio with a smile and says, “Good morning, doctor” as an honorific while the lobby door opens. Maurizio appears completely unafraid. Within a few seconds, a man comes out of nowhere to fire three shots at Gucci’s back as he goes up the steps. The fourth shot to his head finishes him off. Gucci collapses and dies in the red-carpeted foyer of his office. Before walking away, the assassin turns his gun on the building’s janitor — two bullets pierce his arm and shoulder. Then the killer flees in his green French car double parked in the road. An accomplice is waiting for him to speed away. Besides Onorato, another person, a young female employee, is witness to the crime. She notices a baseball cap on the murderer’s head.
Police immediately think the killing is work of a professional hitman due to the precision of the shooting.
Did Maurizio have an alleged unsettled debt in Japan? Was he working on a controversial project in Switzerland? Or did his violent death have something to do with a legal battle within the Gucci family?
Over the previous two decades, a familial civil war had turned brother against brother and nephews against uncles. Rivalry, secrecy and suspicion were proving detrimental to the interests of the brand, resulting in mismanagement and financial mistakes.
After Rodolfo died in 1983, Maurizio inherited his father’s majority stake in the company. He wanted full control of the business and took over its direction. Five years later, he sold nearly half of the company to a Bahrain-based investment fund. His finances were in red and by 1993, he signed the company away to the same investment fund for $170 million.
Destruction was occurring in his private life as well. In 1972, he had married Patrizia Reggiani. She was a beautiful, mysterious girl with stunning and shockingly violet eyes reminiscent of Liz Taylor. Gucci’s father Rodolfo did not approve of their marriage. On the day of their wedding, he flew to the US. He did not like Reggiani’s strong personality. And she was not part of Milan’s high society — she grew up in Vignola, a little town famous for its deep red cherries.
Reggiani once described the beginning of their love story as tormented as that of Romeo and Juliet. But then they were so happy together. They lived the high life at Piazza San Babila in the heart of Milan. Their love nest was a 1,800-square metre penthouse apartment with a swimming pool, a hanging tropical garden and an entire floor used as a party room. They drove Ferrari cars, romantically sailed on superyachts. They owned a ski chalet in Saint Moritz, a holiday home in Acapulco, a penthouse in New York and a farm in Connecticut. She would spend $9,000 a month on orchids alone. Their first baby girl, Alessandra, was born in 1977. The second girl child, Allegra, was welcomed in 1981.
But la dolce vita turned sour.
In the spring of 1985, Maurizio told his wife that he was going on a business trip. He packed a suitcase and left. The following day, he sent a friend to tell her that the marriage was over. What was happening to the couple’s emotional world, not just the material or external circumstances?
After the divorce in 1991, Reggiani was awarded the equivalent of $500,000 in annual alimony. But nothing seemed to ward off the bitterness that flooded her mind. Resentment increased when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1992. The tumor was removed without any apparent ill effects, but the acrimony deepened the moment her former husband sold all his shares in the iconic family business.
Maurizio, on the contrary, began to rebuild his life. He started a new business venture and a new romantic relationship with a younger woman, Paola Franchi, a former model. The lovers would meet, clueless about the danger.
The true crime story is becoming a movie, The House of Gucci. Directed by Ridley Scott, it promises to exude ’90s glamour, intrigue and the stench of decay. The British director, best known for Blade Runner and Gladiator is filming on location across the Gucci family’s emotional landscape. The first scenes were filmed in the Italian Alps, used to recreate the ski resort of Saint Moritz in Switzerland where the Gucci family spent leisure time. Filming will also take place in Milan, Lake Como, Florence and Rome.
The biographical crime film stars Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, “Lady Gucci”, who loved her husband against reason, peace and happiness. The cast is stellar and includes Adam Driver playing the role of Maurizio Gucci, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Jared Leto. Pacino portrays Aldo Gucci, Maurizio’s uncle. It was Aldo who created the iconic double-G Gucci logo in homage to his father Guccio Gucci. Once President John F. Kennedy referred to Aldo as the “first Italian ambassador to the United States”. The Gucci breakthrough in the US led to its global development in Asia and the Middle East. Jeremy Irons plays the part of Rodolfo, Maurizio’s father.
Scheduled to be released on November 24, the film is based on the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden, an American journalist who covered the Italian fashion industry from Milan for years.
In 1997, eighteen months after Gucci’s assassination, this sort of modern Greek tragedy was on its way to legal resolution. “Lady Gucci” was arrested and charged with murder. Love had turned into heartlessness, hate and greed. At a long murder trial that captivated Italy in the late 1990s, she was found guilty of having hired a contract killer after discovering Maurizio had been unfaithful. Reggiani was also furious with him for selling the company. Losing the family business was stupid and she was filled with rage. At the time, Italian media dubbed her La Vedova Nera — the Black Widow.
In addition to her, four others were arrested. Investigators believe that Reggiani hired the killer through a one-time friend called Pina Auriemma, a Neapolitan fortune-teller who put pressure on the hitman to carry out the murder quickly. Pina testified that Reggiani could not bear the thought of another woman taking her place as Mrs. Gucci — and with it, the status and money that she “had earned”.
Her lawyer and doctor tried to prove that her brain tumor had caused psychosis. She was sentenced to 29 years. On the day of the verdict, the Italian media reported that Gucci boutiques across the country hung silver handcuffs in their windows.
After 18 years in prison, she was released on grounds of good behaviour in 2016 and immediately told la Repubblica newspaper about her yearning to return to the world of Gucci. “They need me,” she said. “I still feel like a Gucci — in fact, the most Gucci of them all.”
Reggiani, now 72, tells of her extravagant existence speaking directly to camera in a new documentary available for streaming on Discovery Plus titled Lady Gucci: The Story of Patrizia Reggiani.
In a recent interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper, she expressed annoyance about Lady Gaga portraying her “without even having the courtesy to come and meet me”. “It has nothing to do with money. It is about respect,” she remarked. “Any good actor should get to know the person they’re playing.” But a few days later, she changed her mind: “Lady Gaga is alright. I will watch the film. She looks like me.”
Finally, the ‘Black Widow’ is said to be waiting for death to arrive. “Perhaps I will reincarnate, as a ladybug, I hope.”
The Grace Kelly effect on fashion is priceless, so why did she leave so little in her will?
Despite her unassailable position as one of the great fashion inspirations of all time, Grace Kelly earned a fraction of today’s successful influencer. According to tonight’s Channel 5 documentary entitled Grace Kelly: The Missing Millions, when she died at the age of 52 in 1982 she left $10,000 and a rundown cottage in Ireland given to her by her grandfather.
Clearly that’s not the full story. She was hardly impoverished. But it suggests that the fiercely independent Grace had surrendered much of her financial leverage to others.
Her earnings as a model for toothpaste and local designers in the 1950s – approximately $350,000 across the course of three years – were infinitesimally small compared with the vast amounts she went on to generate for the likes of Dior and Hermès. Naturally, she was paid far less than her Hollywood male counterparts. In 1953’s Mogambo her co-star Clark Gable’s take was six times the size of hers. The Oscar she won in 1955 helped her close in on the men financially, but not much. In 1955’s To Catch a Thief she was paid a third of her leading man Cary Grant’s salary.