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Why Khanyi Mbau doesn’t want her daughter following ‘skinny baddies’
As Khanyi Mbau's daughter gets older, she is looking to help her navigate her relationship with her body image.
Khanyi Mbau and daughter Khanukani | Picture: Instagram
Actress and media personality Khanyi Mbau seems to be a hands-on mom when it comes to her daughter’s social media presence.
Speaking to Pabi Moloi on e.tv’s The Morning Show, Khanyi explained why she advised her daughter, Khanukani Mbau, to start following people who live a similar lifestyle to the one that she lives.
“She follows a lot of skinny baddies and I said, ‘my darling, baddies are not a real thing. You know, these baddies, after filters and everything, they probably don’t live the life that you live,” said Khanyi.
Pabi then asked Khanyi how she feels about Khanukani developing insecurities about her body and trying to navigate that part of her life knowing how much cosmetic surgery her mother has had done to alter her own appearance.
“How do you teach body positivity?”
Khanyi then explained that she is in the process of trying to find out whether her daughter’s feelings about her appearance are rooted in a desire to be healthy or are they more aesthetic based in relation to what images she is exposed to.
“I know she’s confident, but of late, she has just turned 15 and everything is about the body and I think it’s social media.”
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“So I said to her, ‘show me the people that you follow, I need to know the people that you follow because Instagram is a vision board.’ As much as people think it’s just a thing to see what Pabi is up to, what you see is what you become.”
Hence Khanyi’s desire to zone in on the “skinny baddies”.
Baddie is a colloquialism for the slang term “bad b**ch”, which is often used to refer to good-looking women with a certain body type and appearance.
Khanukani was recently the subject of rumours after social media users said that she was pregnant based on how her tummy looked in a video shared by her mother.
Last December, Khanyi addressed the rumour on social media, stating that it was not true and explaining that she only said something about it to remind people that she will not allow her daughter to be victimised and abused.
“One thing I will not allow is my daughter being victimised and abused by a rumour started by a woman on TikTok @bigmmam9410 from an innocent family video posted by Lasizwe.”
“Hate me all you want but @mbau2 is a child. the fact that the first thought that comes to all your minds is that a child could be pregnant shows how sick of a society we have all become. No wonder rape, child abduction, and abuse have become a norm and why stats are so high. our children are in danger, the energies we adults put out are vile and disgusting. we show no faith in them and don’t respect children,” she wrote in an Instagram post that has since been deleted.
