The entertainment industry has been rocked by the shocking news of Cape Town DJ Luwayne Wonder cheating on his sick wife after he begged South Africa to help get her home from Dubai.
The 37-year-old radio DJ, real name Luwayne Bouwers, made headlines in 2020, when he sent an urgent plea to listeners via his Facebook page.
Bouwers called for assistance after his wife Crystal Pretorius suffered brain damage caused by a haemorrhage while they were in Dubai.
Pretorius, who worked as an SEO Manager in Dubai, gave birth to her youngest daughter, two weeks before the brain bleed incident. The couple has three daughters, 2, 5 and 9 years old.
The sudden incident left Pretorius paralysed on her right side and Luwayne said she needed to be airlifted home to a hospital.
On October 5, 2020, Bouwers made a public appeal for help to raise R500 000 to transport Pretorius, who was in a coma, from the United Arab Emirates, where the couple had been working and living for five years.
Thanks to various fund-raising initiatives and a Back-A-Buddy campaign, they reached their goal with help from friends and fans all over the world.
After six operations in Dubai, the couple and their kids safely returned to South Africa on December 10.
Pretorius was immediately admitted to a hospital in Cape Town where she underwent further treatment in December 2020 and was then transferred to a different hospital for rehabilitation on February 26, 2021.
After a year at home with her husband and children in South Field, Cape Town, Pretorius was on her way to recovery but said she had a long road ahead.
Pretorius reached out to IOL Entertainment to tell her story. In an exclusive interview, an emotional Pretorius says things then took a turn for the worst.
“Luwayne said he no longer wants to be with me because he couldn’t handle me in the state I was in, he said he wouldn’t be able to take care of me and that I was to go back to my family home.”
Pretorius said she endured a lot during her marriage, especially after they returned home but was broken by the posts on Bouwers’ social media account where he boasted about him and his girlfriend shacked up in a hotel room for his birthday weekend.
The mom of three alleges that this was not the first affair. But in him making it public, she felt humiliated and wanted to add her side of the story.
As such, she commented on her husband’s celebratory Facebook message, writing: “A whole married man! Very classy Luwayne Bouwers and Edna Hamilton!”
Due to her speech impediment caused by the rapture, Pretorius has difficulty speaking and, as such, does the interview at a pace that is comfortable to her.
While she is blind in her left eye, she is now able to move her right leg, which was completely paralysed a few months ago. This helps her move around in her wheelchair and she is making progress over time.
She said: “The words are in my brain and it’s all there ready to come out but it gets stuck in the process and takes a little longer to come out of my mouth, but I know what I want to say and I’m finally ready to speak my truth.”
She refers to one comment out of her Facebook post where she wrote: “Luwayne stopped being my husband not long after we came back to Cape Town, I don't think he was prepared to take care of his now disabled wife.
“I was lonely for months, he stopped speaking to me whilst we lived in the same house. He just told me one day he does not want to deal with this and moved on. I’ve been living with my family back home since about February of this year.
“I’ve been aware of his affair with Edna Hamilton for months. He told me he found someone and that he is happy. What happened to ‘in sickness and in health’?
“He was only there for the good life I provided for him,and I’m tired of him acting like the good guy, when he’s treated me like garbage.
“I'll forever be grateful to my in-laws especially his mom, that stepped up and took my kids, looking after them without question. She’s doing an amazing job.
“There is so much more to my truth, but I will share it all soon.”
She said: “Luwayne keeps on pressuring me to give him money when I’m living off a disability grant, its barely enough to get me by but he would come to where I now live, to ask me to give him money.
“I had to sell my clothes and shoes to get money, and he even wanted money of that money.
“One day he came to pressure me for R800 and then even told me he loves this new woman he is seeing, I screamed because I was heartbroken and my family came in and he left but insisted that he will return the next day for the money, I eventually gave him the money just to make him stop going on with me.”
Bouwers told IOL Entertainment that he can confirm that incident: “ But it was only that one time, I never asked her for money besides that R800.”
Pretorius claims Bouwers misused the funds that were raised by friends and family.
“His target was to raise R500 000 to bring us home but he raised way more than that amount and when we got home he splashed it on an Audi car, clothes, takkies and other luxuries.
“When he said he doesn’t want to be with me anymore, he also tried to get me to sign an agreement to say I won't want to claim half of the car if we got divorced, I didn’t agree to anything and just left it.
“We don’t own any assets together so there is nothing to split if we should get divorced, but he was worried about the car, he then decided to sell the car and get a Polo which he is now driving.
“He hasn’t come to hassle me for money again because I assume he has change left from selling the Audi.”
Bouwers refused to comment on the other allegations made by Pretorius but has told IOL Entertainment that he will respond when he is ready.
Read the latest IOL Entertainment digi mag here.