Johannesburg - Actor Israel Makoe is seen by many as a hardman who has dealt with all the world could throw at him, with very little emotion.
But there is one thing he still struggles to cope with: the death of his son.
"It is something that's very difficult. It is not something you can heal yourself from," Israel revealed to Khanyi Mbau on Katch it with Khanyi recently.
Adding, "Counseling doesn't help. It is something that will always hurt."
Recounting his son's death, Israel says: "Life is something else. I realised my boy wanted to walk in my path before I became Israel the actor. Before my son died I warned him about the person who shot him. I didn't know anything about him but I didn't like him. I told my son not to hang out with him. I did not like him."
"One day I was sleeping, there was a knock on my door. I was told my son had died, he was shot. They were playing around with a gun. We were not there, it was all hearsay. When they came to us they had already cleaned the blood. They had taken him to the clinic and he had died. I wondered why they didn't call us earlier," he added.
Israel says he only attended court proceedings of the boy accused of shooting his son because he was forced, and that he already knew the outcome.
"I grew up in court. I knew the justice system. Boys will be boys was the judgement and I knew the judgement before it was even given," he says.