The 702 breakfast show host talks about his journey of pride and change.
In 1994, when Bongani “Bonglez” Bingwa was in matric, he won a debating competition. His victory saw him being interviewed by 702’s radio talk show host Mike Mills. Mills asked Bongani what he wanted to do when he was older.
“Your job,” Bongani replied briskly. But as a Black gay teenager living in a newly liberated South Africa, he never imagined it would come true.
Fast forward to April 26, 2019. Bongani, at 47, is the host of 702’s Breakfast Show. He opens the phone lines on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Freedom Day to reflect on “the good, the bad and the ugly” of South Africa’s democracy.
“As an openly gay man,” Bongani begins, “there’s no way I would have been behind this mic in 1994.”
Nowadays, Bongani is free to bring his full self into the spaces he occupies, as a father, a broadcaster, and as an out and proud gay man.
“There are so many who withered in the shadows after recriminations for daring to peek outside the closet. I stand on the shoulders of those sacrifices,” he says.
People know Bongani for his work, not for his sexuality.
“Sure, I don’t hide, but if it comes up at all for non-queer people, I guess they think this is Bongani Bingwa from radio or television, and by the way he’s gay. Hopefully, for my queer folk I represent visibility.”
Bongani says he is privileged and financially independent, which gave him the power to be visible.
“We have some good, legislated rights, but so many hearts and minds are anti-queer. The road ahead is yet a long one.”
Bongani has travelled down long, bumpy roads before, all the way from rural Mthatha where he grew up in the 1980s. His big career break came when he was chosen as a children’s TV presenter at the SABC.
“I was intimidated but also enthralled at the chance,” he recalls.
From there it was a hop, skip and cutaway to becoming one of the country’s most popular broadcasters, which included an 11-year stint as a field journalist with the investigative TV programme, Carte Blanche.
But it’s in radio that Bongani has found his voice. He joined 702 in 2005 as an overnight news reader and progressed to hosting Talk At Nine and the Afternoon Drive show (yes, he got Mike Mills’ job), before taking over the coveted breakfast show in 2017.
“I had always wanted to be in broadcasting but also felt that I needed to say something that was meaningful,” he says.
Bongani comes across as unflappable, but the pressure of live broadcasting still makes him nervous.
“The great Riaan Cruywagen told me many years ago when I was a rookie in the SABC newsroom that if the butterflies ever left my stomach, I should seek different employment, because that would mean I’d stopped caring.”
As a public figure, Bongani doesn’t mind listeners taking ownership of him.
“I am sincere in my work. When I am shocked, outraged, moved or in stitches, those are genuine responses. Listeners can relate because those would be their responses too.”
It pleases Bongani when people greet him by his clan name, Bhele, or when hip and young listeners call him Bonglez. “It really shows me I’m theirs,” he says. “It’s humbling.”
Of all his many accomplishments, the one he’s most proud of is being a father. Bongani has a 27-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.
“I’m a father before I am anything else. “It’s my most rewarding and yet toughest job.”
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