Presenter Minnie Dlamini has
turned Tropika's TV paradise into living hell for the producers with her
alleged diva demands and fighting in front of the contestants.
The advertiser-funded show's
upcoming season on SABC3 started filming last week in the Seychelles.
Minnie Dlamini abruptly resigned as the co-presenter on SABC1's SoccerZone two
weeks ago after jetting off to the Seychelles to present Clover's revived Tropika Island of Treasure.
The show is filming its 7th season and will jump from SABC1 to
SABC3 when it is broadcast in March 2017, courting a more upmarket and
sophisticated consumer audience.
Sunday
World reports that the embattled Tropika Island of Treasure producers went as far as eventually
reaching out to the SABC to try and salvage the situation when Minnie Dlamini allegedly
refused to come to an agreement over production issues that threatened to
shipwreck the show running on a very tight production schedule.
Sponsor
Clover, running the revived TV show under its Tropika brand, and the producers
allegedly became fed up with Minnie Dlamini's diva demands.
Already
on a tight production budget, the show's producers bristled when Minnie Dlamini demanded
that her entourage accompany her to the Seychelles a day before she was
supposed to fly from South Africa to the island paradise. She wanted her own
stylist and social media team to go with her as well.
Minnie Dlamini allegedly went ballistic in the Seychelles when she found out that
the Tropika Island of Treasure producers
had decided to tweak the show format and add a co-presenter.
The
production earlier this year announced that Jonathan Boynton-Lee, a presenter on
SABC3's Top Billing will be brought in in the new role of
Games Master on the 7th season of Tropika Island of Treasure who will encourage and talk the
various teams through the challenges that will include physical and mental
puzzles.
Minnie Dlamini had no problem with that.
She
was however angered when she discovered, after arriving in the Seychelles, that
Cardova Productions wanted to add a full co-presenter with whom she would have
to share the spotlight.
Conflict
erupted since Minnie Dlamini who co-hosted on SoccerZone, doesn't want a co-presenter.
In
a statement Minnie Dlamini says "Cardova and Tropika offered
me the sole hosting position of the upcoming season which I signed on for. I specifically
asked not to be considered if they were looking for two presenters."
"The
last minute they wanted to introduce a co-host which I refused as per the
initial agreement. There was conflict on the island as a result," says Minnie Dlamini.
According
to the producers Minnie Dlamini got her way to take her own hair
stylist along to the Seychelles but the request for a social media team was
axed since the show already organised social media people to document the
activities.
