Bonang Matheba, Minnie Dlamini and Lasizwe panned over red carpet fashion choices, Nomzamo Mbatha and Aisha Baker praised for E! Africa's 15th birthday celebration.

The South African celebrities Bonang Matheba, Minnie Dlamini and Lasizwe Dambuza (who forgot to put on pants) got slammed, while Nomzamo Mbatha and social media influencer Aisha Baker garnered praise, over their respective red carpet fashion choices at Thursday night's E! Africa party to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the presence of the entertainment channel from NBCUniversal International Networks in South Africa and Africa.

Bonang Matheba, Lasizwe Dambusa in a white "man-tard" without pants, and Minnie Dlamini in a Marilyn Monroe inspired, head-to-toe pink look from fashion designer Gert-Johan Coetzee, were all panned on social media for their red carpet couture choices.

#MINNIE looks like a vanish cleaner ambassador #LoveELiveE pic.twitter.com/yftejHjHMa

— 👑Dimas🐐 (@madymamadima) April 11, 2019

Minnie is dressed like a doll from Shoprite I'm not okay guys

— Orca Ninjas (@PrettyBoyMweza) April 11, 2019

5. Minenhle Jones:
I HATE THIS LOOK.
She looks like she just flew in from Minnie Mouse’s Tea Party in Disneyland. Nice shoes though. pic.twitter.com/jJpTuZIo8Y

— Ray R* Kamolane (@Ray_Kamolane) April 11, 2019

Bonang Matheba, meanwhile, in Villiotti Fashion, was criticised for looking like she was repeating an outfit and for not trying hard enough.

I have seen Bonang in that similar dress before, i expected more FASHION from her, I'm disappointed #15YearsOfE

— kgabo Shilabjwe (@kgabo_shilabjwe) April 11, 2019

Haven't we've seen this before pic.twitter.com/lb7ns5zyTV

— Chyna (@andilechyna28) April 12, 2019

The worst-dressed of the evening on the E! Africa red carpet was Lasizwe Dambuza.

Haibo what's going on this Earth? What's this? 😭😭😭😭😭😭#15YearsOfE #lasizwe pic.twitter.com/UUv3ZWMYAQ

— Reneilwe Lethabo (@NaeLoeBae) April 11, 2019

I see Lasizwe is wearing a baby romper to match his childish personality. https://t.co/GioBsNo3p1

— Sinenhlanhla 👑 (@MyLifeAsSne) April 11, 2019

Nomzamo Mbatha garnered universal praise for her E! Africa red carpet appearance, as did Aisha Baker. Nomzamo Mbatha received the E! Africa Pop Culture Award for Philanthropy while Aisha Baker received the E! Africa Pop Culture Award for Social Media.

My winner of the night of the #15YearsOfE in Africa celebration is @NomzamoMbatha. Beautifully dressed with so much poise, she was The Best and Nicest to media on our other end of the rope line BY FAR. Made time for Every media with The Best, & most eloquent answers.#LoveELiveE pic.twitter.com/CKkbppxV1i

— TVwithThinus (@TVwithThinus) April 12, 2019

@bakedonline looks amazing on the #15YearsOfE red carpet 😍😍❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/8polOLYjXX

— LORINDASWORLD™ (@LorindasWorld) April 11, 2019

ALSO READ: REVIEW. E!'s 15th birthday party in South Africa was fine and looked beautiful but with too many 'standing-room only' guests while TV execs hid away in their roped-off alcoves, it felt more college-years nightclub night than big celebration.
ALSO READ: TV CRITIC's NOTEBOOK. As E! marks 15 years in South Africa as a TV channel on DStv, here are 15 things that E! brought into my life that I'm thankful for. 
ALSO READ: TV CRITIC's NOTEBOOK. At E!'s 15th Africa anniversary party, I tried to ask ProVerb just one question - and then something happened that made me think about what's reasonable to expect from TV stars who decide to be on the red carpet. 
ALSO READ: IN IMAGES. 37 photos from inside E!'s party to celebrate 15 years of the channel from NBCUniversal International Networks in South Africa and Africa on MultiChoice's DStv.
ALSO READ: MultiChoice content boss, Aletta Alberts, on 15 years of E! from NBCUniversal International Networks on DStv: 'Africans will continue to be part of the E! story'.
ALSO READ: E! unveils a new E! Africa TV commercial to celebrate its presence of 15 years on the continent; 'it was like a proper film set,' says Roxy Burger.
ALSO READ: E! in Africa announces the recipients of its first-ever E! Africa Pop Culture Awards in 2019.
ALSO READ: NBCUniversal International Networks celebrating E!'s 15th anniversary in South Africa and Africa with a celebration party and the first-ever E! Africa Pop Culture Awards.
ALSO READ: E! commissions new 10-episode show, Celebrity Game Night, produced by Rapid Blue, as its next localised African series; production starting July for broadcast in late-2019.

Top Billing on South African public television celebrates gay wedding of fashion designer Gert-Johan Coetzee - as the rest of African TV shy away from making a gay faux pas.

On Thursday night the long running weekly entertainment magazine show Top Billing on SABC3 not only showed, but celebrated, the gay wedding of the South African fashion designer Gert-Johan Coetzee - a real-life South African television tableau that's still inconceivable for public broadcasters and on TV screens elsewhere on the African continent.

With an aggressive and ever-increasing anti-gay sentiment sweeping across Africa from Nigeria to Uganda as governments are ramping up the prosecution of homosexuals and grappling with legislative issues regarding the sexual preference of citizens, the mere broadcast - let alone celebration - of a gay wedding between two men on a national broadcaster is as groundbreaking as it is impossible outside of South Africa's borders.

On Thursday night's episode the entertainment show from Tswelope Productions - known for its almost constantly shirtless male presenters in a type of tit-for-tat gender objectification - showed the forest wedding of Gert-Johan Coetzee and his lover, Vicky Visagie.

Vicky Visagie is a software developer and works as the brand manager of the in vogue fashion designer with his recognisable croissant coif.

The men got married at the Buisfontein Safari Lodge in the Northwest Province with not just one but two Top Billing presenters in attendance - Jonathan Boynton-Lee who is currently South Africa's "sexiest man", and Bonang Matheba, South Africa's ascendant queen of all media as a wedding guest.

By doing this Top Billing - largely seen as South African television's most influential programme over the past two decades and holding sway over the national consciousness of fashion, trends, conspicuous consumption and indicative of what constitutes current high society - normalises something which similar TV shows and broadcasters in Africa won't touch.

Indeed South African television seems a separate island compared to the rest of Africa with its inclusion, depiction and celebration of gay characters.

While verboten and shunned on TV screens elsewhere on the continent, flipping through TV channels, South African viewers have become used to seeing a spectrum of gay people in any number of ongoing usual and unusual circumstances.

This range from public broadcaster, free-to-air and pay-TV soaps like Generations and Isidingo on the SABC which have included gay characters for a number of years now, to e.tv's Rhythm City and Scandal! - even Mzansi Magic's Inkaba.

Even serialised local dramas like After Nine and eKasi: Our Stories on the SABC and e.tv have shown that South African broadcasters, unlike their African counterparts, are not shying away from telling stories with and about gay characters on local television.

The popular pay-TV reality show Survivor South Africa: Champions on M-Net currently includes the gay wedding planner and rugby player contestant Zavion Kotze, presenting an image of a real-life gay man on television to a South African public they've never seen before.