Chef Zola Nene is the latest addition to M-Net’s hit show, Wedding Bashers. In the latest installment of the franchise, The Wedding Bashers Specials: With Love, bashers have now become wedding planners too.
Zola teams up with actress Denise Zimba, events planner Zavion Kotze and former Miss South Africa Bernelee Daniell to plan weddings for those in need of help. But there’s a catch – they aren’t allowed to meet the couples whose weddings they’re planning.
Zola brings a warm sense of charisma to the already eccentric team of bashers. And when asked what her biggest challenges were, the celebrity chef said one of them was her ever-present gag reflex!
Zola replaces celebrity chef Siba Mtongana and already has the press in tears with her hilarious tales.
At a private screening of the show’s first episode she said she was worried what people would think of her “coming into a group” that already existed.
“Are they going to be, ‘She wasn’t as fun as Siba.’”
“But I’m proud to say we gelled from the first day. We laughed every single day. We literally just attend weddings. Who can say [that’s] their job?
“As a chef and a food stylist my biggest challenge is that I have a gag reflex like nobody’s business,” she added. “Just the smell of something gets me going, it’s a problem.”
Zola also hilariously warned sensitive viewers to beware. “Good luck if you’re squeamish, I’m probably going to make you vomit sometimes. I gag a lot and it’s not because something’s disgusting, it’s a memory thing. I remember my mom boiling chicken feet and the smell stays with me, you know what I mean?
“So when I see a chicken foot I just smell that. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t smell of that, I just smell [the boiling]. So I gag a lot and that’s a lot to overcome, but I’ve gotten better. Bear with me, I do get better,” she joked.
She also praised the new version of the show. “It’s nice to come in on a positive note because we do bash weddings. I think it’s difficult for people, who sometimes say ‘Can you do better?’ So we show them what we can do and we’re like, ‘Ja, we can!’”
Wedding Bashers Specials: With Love premieres Sunday 29 April at 6pm on M-Net.
