Mugabe treats Zim's Big Brother winner

Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Thursday presented $50 000 to Wendall Parson, co-winner of this year's Big Brother Africa reality show, who was honoured with a luncheon at his official residence.

Mugabe also presented $10 000 to Vimbai Mutinhiri, another Zimbabwean housemate in the show, and $50 000 to distance runner Stephen Muzhingi who won the Comrades ultra-marathon in South Africa for the third time.

"I do not know the goings-on in that house," Mugabe said, referring to the reality show.

"The 91 days are meant to test you in terms of the capacity you have, the strength, the power you have physically. And indeed the strength and power you have intellectually."

Parson, 23, won the top prize of $200 000 on the Big Brother Amplified reality show on July 31 along with Nigerian model Karen Igho.

Last year Mugabe presented $300 000 as a consolation prize to Munyaradzi Chidzonga, the country's representative in the reality show, after local fans claimed he was unfairly evicted.

Mugabe, 87, said the cash gifts were pooled together by local business executives.

"I am here and I am very proud to be Zimbabwean. We are a great people," Parson said.

Big Brother, which sees contestants put into a house together and filmed around the clock, burst onto the scene more than a decade ago on Dutch television and has since been filmed and broadcast in more than 60 countries.