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Post by MyAdia on Jul 29, 2011 8:12:50 GMT -5
Once a small mining town now absorbed into Johannesburg's sprawl, Benoni is the kind of suburb that urban sophisticates love to deride, the butt of jokes made at posher addresses. Benoni doesn’t seem to be looked highly upon, which is probably why Charlene doesn’t go back there. It also seems to be stuck into apartheid era with a very small white community. In this article there is also a quote from one of Charlene’s teachers who mentions she missed a lot of school to attend swim meet. What’s really sad is that Charlene’s parents think they now that their con artist daughter has struck gold (or won the World Cup) with Sucker Albert that their mis-education of their dumb-as-a-rock daughter was a good thing. I don’t know where the reporter got the idea that the dumb-as-a-rock con artist went to a boarding school in Durban when she left home – she went to Durban to train and swim full-time – not to study.
Benoni, home of fairytalesBy Jean Liou published in TonightJune 24 2011
Once a small mining town now absorbed into Johannesburg's sprawl, Benoni is the kind of suburb that urban sophisticates love to deride, the butt of jokes made at posher addresses.
But residents of Benoni - the childhood home of the future princess of Monaco, swimming star Charlene Wittstock - are now re-imagining their humble town as a place for fairy-tale beginnings.
Until Wittstock's engagement to Prince Albert II, Benoni was already known in glossy magazines as the birthplace of Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron, another blonde beauty who became a global star.
Wittstock moved here from Zimbabwe in 1988, when she was 10 years old. Seven years later, she left for boarding school in the coastal city of Durban and to pursue a swimming career that took her to the Olympics in Sydney.
Still, Benoni claims her formative years. About 35 kilometres (20 miles) east of Johannesburg, it's a city of more than 600,000 that feels far smaller.
Like most South African cities, yet to move beyond the crude divisions imposed by Apartheid-era urban planning, the black majority lives in townships far from view of the main roads
The modest town centre., born in the 1880s gold rush that also gave rise to Johannesburg, has been largely abandoned by whites for the last 20 years.
Informal stalls of African markets now line the streets that look on mine dumps. An old locomotive rusts in front of a deserted museum.
Residents both black and white mill about a huge shopping centre that boasts a fake Mississippi River paddle steamer.
Wittstock lived in northern neighbourhoods that were reserved for whites when her family here in the final years of apartheid.
Roads are orderly, clean and calm. Middle class homes are surrounded by walls but without the extreme security seen in wealthier Johannesburg.
“I miss my relatives, the friendly people and the Bunny Park,” she told the local paper during her last visit here in February.
Indeed, the town's main attraction is a bucolic public park overrun with rabbits, a wonderland for children.
But, for all its apparent tranquility, South Africa's notorious crime problem threatens Benoni too. Police report a surge in carjackings, including one against Wittstock's father.
Mike Wittstock was held up with an AK47 aimed at his face as he was returning home one evening in February.
His nose was broken and the car stolen, with the incident making him consider a move to Monaco because of “the state of crime in this country”.
Among the small white community, where everyone seems to know each other, many are planning to watch the wedding on television on July 2.
“We all are dressing up with our wedding dresses and we will party,” said Bridget du Toit, a teacher sharing drinks with friends at a bar overlooking the Bunny Park.
At Wittstock's old school, she's remembered as an ordinary girl, well behaved except for skipping class to swim, and with a funny accent when she spoke Afrikaans.
“She was very quiet. She didn't like to be in the spotlight. It's very surprising to see, when you consider the life she's going to have,” said Lyndsay Coelho, who taught her geography.
“She was very focused on her swimming. She knew exactly what she needed to do to achieve what she wanted to achieve.”
Sensing an opportunity, another local school is asking the Monaco royals for helping building its own swimming pool, which would be named after Charlene Wittstock. - Sapa-AFP
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Post by hibou on Jul 29, 2011 10:55:21 GMT -5
Well, let's see of ole Charbert will remember her home of Benoni and buy them a new pool. So she supposedly went to boarding school? What boarding school?
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Post by paca on Jul 29, 2011 10:57:19 GMT -5
Bridget du Toit. And incidentally the wine guy is called du Toit? ?hmmmm
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Post by paca on Jul 29, 2011 10:59:24 GMT -5
and she doesn't master afrikaans either. sounds like the woman doesn't speak any language properly...
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Post by MyAdia on Sept 8, 2011 11:37:59 GMT -5
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Post by countess on Sept 8, 2011 11:59:34 GMT -5
i'm convinced "she's" a tranny. there are ugly boys that are prettier than her in those pics, i'm wondering if she wasn't born with that ?morfidite??? thing. i'm sure that's the attraction since Fatal is supposed to be (according to my gay friends) bi-sexual. he has severe emotional problems and all kinds of issues, i'm sure with his father there was no way he was allowed to grow up gay (perhaps that's why his mother was so partial to him, her gay brother made it possible for her to move to NY and try acting) and now he's married the closest thing to a man, he's only changed the outside to look more womanly, we have no idea what is really happening in her panties/boxers JMO plus she's so butch front or back it would be like mating with a man she's so gross, i'm sure she likes it the nastier the better, gotta be kinky to be with FatAl......wonder if that's changed since she got the ring ROFL he doesn't care i'm sure he's got a girlfriend in one apartment and his boyfriend a couple floors above her for convience.
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Post by emmeline on Sept 8, 2011 12:56:47 GMT -5
I'm quite suspicious about what mother nature has done with Charlene. I'm not too sure that she is a girl-girl.
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Post by smt on Dec 3, 2011 9:42:19 GMT -5
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Post by emmeline on Dec 3, 2011 9:46:05 GMT -5
At least when she was a child she looked like a boy. Now, with all these surgeries, she looks like a wannabe glamour tranny with a horrible swollen face.
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Post by MyAdia on Dec 4, 2011 8:52:56 GMT -5
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Post by countess on Dec 4, 2011 10:17:41 GMT -5
further proof, trashy is a tranny JMO
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Post by duchesscornflower on Dec 4, 2011 14:28:03 GMT -5
I'm quite suspicious about what mother nature has done with Charlene. I'm not too sure that she is a girl-girl. Women have their belly-button at their waist line. Men have lower bell-button placement. Look at Pictures of Charelene in a bikinni and you will see that she is a girl-girl.
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Post by emmeline on Dec 4, 2011 16:26:30 GMT -5
Well, if she is a girl-girl, is the manliest girl i've seen in my life.
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Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2011 17:15:00 GMT -5
Too much testosterone.
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Post by cm7007 on Dec 4, 2011 19:10:41 GMT -5
I'm quite suspicious about what mother nature has done with Charlene. I'm not too sure that she is a girl-girl. Women have their belly-button at their waist line. Men have lower bell-button placement. Look at Pictures of Charelene in a bikinni and you will see that she is a girl-girl. Well, she's moved everything else, why not her belly button as well. ;D Or, perhaps since she's spent so much time in the water, she's a water mammal and that's her blow hole! ;D ;D ;D
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Post by refia on Dec 30, 2014 20:54:27 GMT -5
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Post by agentf on Jan 17, 2015 14:08:49 GMT -5
I totally missed this thread before. I think the first ever post with CC's school pics show she was once giddy happy. It's bittersweet to look at, frankly.
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Post by hibou on Jan 17, 2015 16:12:16 GMT -5
I find the body language between Charlene and her Father pretty interesting - he literally has a hold on her. Lynette looks carefree and happy. Wonder what happened in that marriage? Perhaps it became all about Charlene and the rest of the family was left behind. Don't know? Charlene was a skinny kid, so developing into an Olympic athlete with all those well defined muscles must have been difficult. I am reading the most interesting Biography of the Duchess of Windsor in which they talk about the possibility of the Duchess being born with both male and female sex organs which can sometimes be internal, and the only way to know if a person is truly male or female is the DNA. However, the book goes on to comment on the Duchess large hands and masculine features. She is described by many in that time period as rather masculine. She was also obsessed with being feminine and thin hence clothes and jewels became very important to her. They also describe her as having many "intestinal" issues and surgeries which no one knows what they were since her medical records could not be accessed. People also wondered why after many affairs (prior to the future king) she never got pregnant at a time when birth control was pretty much a novelty that many women didn't have access too. It's just all so interesting to compare these comments to Charlene. I just wonder. JMO.
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Post by paca on Jan 19, 2015 8:39:08 GMT -5
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Post by agentf on Jan 19, 2015 8:59:27 GMT -5
The revisionism and mythbuilding continues, it seems. First, she was an Irish aristocrat now...? Next they'll bring out some Holocaust survivors from left field and she will cover almost all bases. Sorry to be cynical, but this smells. Third Hand Secrets
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