She told Sowetan that the weight loss was part of a cathartic rebirth.
She had to shed the pounds to shed the tumultuous couple of years she has been through.
“I just needed to get rid of what was going on and getting rid of Generations meant getting rid of my weight. My weight reminded me of Ruby.”
Television viewers came to know Nodangala as Mam’Ruby – the big, bright and bold singing shebeen queen on the SABC1 soapie Generations that she portrayed with zest.
In 2015 Ruby ceased to be when Nodangala and 15 other cast members were fired from the show after a royalties’ dispute and the show was overhauled. The Generations 16, as they came to be known, were left out in the cold.
“As a single parent, I think it got too much. I had just bought a house, a car and relocated my kids from Durban. Out of the blue, that happened, we didn’t anticipate it.
“We were fighting for our rights and I think partly that’s the reason why I had to get rid of the weight,” she explained.
“I started resenting being part of that show, which was wrong because I had put a lot into it. Writers put words into paper and I put life into a character. So trying to bury that part and giving birth to the new me was not easy.”
Nodangala, who last starred in Lockdown on Mzansi Magic said she turned to God to cope. She feared she might never find work again. “Every time I hear or see anything written about the (Generations) 16 I laugh because I’m like ‘you South Africans have no clue what happened to us, no clue whatsoever’. And it’s stuff that we won’t disclose because most of it is triple A confidential.
“What was sad is that we were getting threats from all over and some of it was so unnecessary because we were just actors fighting for our rights. We were not saying SABC or the production [house] should give us all of their money. We just wanted a piece of the pie. I remembered who I was raised by. So, ja, I went back to church. I’m still standing.”
Nodangala may have lost weight but her personality is still as bubbly as ever.
However, she said she had no advice or formula for losing weight. She started off at the gym but soon got bored.
“It’s about your mindset.”
