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Cape Town - Presenter Minnie Dlamini has allegedly 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 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 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 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.
