If you had told me five years ago that one day I would become a slay queen, living my life, doing drugs, and attending endless parties, I would have disagreed. My mom is someone who loves church—she loves it a lot and used to force us to go. Right now, I think I’m living my best life on Instagram simply because I post twerk videos, even without showing my face. I have more than 200k followers, and I even receive gifts from around the world, including designer bags that I can’t even pronounce.

I would have laughed in your face if you had told me that this would be the life I’d be living, starting in 2022 and continuing today. Back then, I was just Mbali (not her real name) from Umlazi, scraping through life with no plan and no connections. But life has a funny way of turning you into something you never expected. This is my confession.

It all started in my second year at university. At that time, I hadn’t yet run away from home, and I was still living in Durban. I was studying Media and Communications, a course I didn’t want to do, but my parents forced me to go to university. I ended up choosing it because it sounded fancy. My mom, a nurse who loved God with all her heart, worked double shifts to pay for my fees, while my dad, well, let’s just say he disappeared when I was 10. Life was hard, and I hated how broke we always were.

In my first year, I used to scroll through Instagram and see stunning girls living their best lives—exotic vacations, luxury cars, outfits that looked like they belonged in Vogue. I thought, “How do they do it? They can’t all be working 9-5 jobs. Some of them don’t even look old enough to have a degree.” That’s when I learned about being a slay queen.

It all started when we went to a resort area. We had no money, so I asked my friend what exactly we were going to do there since the only money we had was for the Uber ride. How would we get back home? My friend said, “Don’t worry. Later on, we’ll meet men who will buy us drinks. Afterward, they’ll take us home and even give us some money.” That’s how I started.

One day, my friend Zinhle came back to the room with a brand new iPhone, the latest model. I was shocked because I knew she couldn’t afford it with her NSFAS allowance. When I asked her where she got it, she just smiled and said, “T, you need to stop stressing about money and start living.” I pressed for details, and eventually, she spilled the beans. Zinhle had met an older man, whom she called her “blesser.” He was in his late 40s, married, and loaded. He gave her money, paid her rent, and even bought her clothes.

All she had to do was keep him company on weekends. She made it sound easy, like a part-time job. She said, “Girl, these men don’t even want a relationship. They just want someone young and beautiful, and you are perfect.” I was horrified but also curious. After all, I had been used before—someone had bought us a 12-pack of Savanna, and the next morning, they gave us only R300.I looked at myself—my sneakers had holes in them, and I was tired of just surviving. The idea started to grow on me.

A week later, Zinhle invited me to a party in Umhlanga Rocks. It wasn’t just a party; it was a networking event for blessers and potential “babes.” When we arrived, I was stunned. The house was a mansion with glass windows overlooking the ocean. Everyone looked like they had stepped out of a music video. I felt so out of place in my cheap dress and knock-off heels, but Zinhle wouldn’t let me hide.

She introduced me to a man named Thabo, a successful businessman. He was handsome, and there was something about him. He kept rubbing his neck chain as we spoke. He told me, “You have great potential. A face like yours can take you far.” He spoke to me throughout the night, and I won’t lie—I was hooked.

When this man gave me money after asking for my phone number, I was stunned. I was shy at first, but then he handed me an envelope and told me to open it in another room. “This is a little gift for you for being so friendly,” he said. Inside was R5,000. And I won’t lie—I was hooked. The money covered my rent and bought me a nice pair of shoes. Suddenly, I didn’t have to stress about surviving anymore.

Over the next few months, he introduced me to his friends—other men who wanted what he called “low-maintenance companionship” and “relationships. I started attending more parties with different older men, regular “tenderpreneurs.” Some would force us to have threesomes or act as if we were lesbians while they watched. As I was receiving all this money, my followers grew. Despite hustling and everything, deep down in my heart, I didn’t feel okay.

I wasn’t yet used to this lifestyle of sleeping with different men every night. Once you’re in that world as a “slay queen,” it becomes addictive because you just crave the finer things in life. But deep down, I knew this wasn’t right. I would try to pray, and when I did, it felt like the Holy Spirit was reminding me of all the bad things I had done with these men I had slept with, even the night before. I had also gotten hooked on drugs.

Now, as I became more visible on Instagram, my DMs became like a gold mine. When you have a lot of followers, businessmen—yes, even pastors—slide into your inbox offering trips, money, and gifts. Some were genuine, while others were disasters waiting to happen.

Let me tell you about my first big trip abroad: it was to Dubai. One of my new friends, a guy who owned several trucks, invited me. These trucks had contracts in the mines.The mine was pouring money into his company, so we went to Dubai. Everything seemed perfect, but deep down, I felt trapped because this man had tendencies to beat me for no reason at all. Yes, he did beat me up while we were in Dubai, to the point where my face was so swollen I couldn’t even post anything. We were supposed to stay for two weeks, but we ended up staying in Dubai for more than two months. Private doctors would come to fix my face because the beatings he gave me in a drunken rage were just too much. I fell deeper into this life until I started dating another guy, a CEO of a different company.

Until I started dating another guy, a CEO of a company. This man seemed okay, but he had a troubled childhood. I was even scared of him. Every time we make love , I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This man used to trap cats. Each time I would sleep with him, he would have caught a cat. He would travel to different locations, capture a cat, and  Later in the evening, when I would be at his place, he would take that cat and stab it with a knife. He mentioned that he enjoyed watching the cat suffer.

He once had another cat that he started to break the bones of, one by one, while it was tied down. It was really terrible to witness such an evil act. Before the cat died, he would jump on top of me and make love to me. He said that he had a fixation on this behavior. He had a troubled childhood; his father used to do the same things that is what scared me about that man. After that, I said I was facing too much abuse from my South African blesser.

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 This was wen i introduced to another man, a “blesser” from Zimbabwe who owns several companies here in South Africa. He took me to his country, and I went with him to Zimbabwe. He has a very large farm. When we got there, he forced me to have sex with one of his snake. In exchange, he gave me 200k. He also told me that we couldn’t return to South Africa by flight because when we had gone to Zimbabwe, we had flown from South Africa. He said that this money was a lot and would be suspecious.

You know what this man did, He had a friend who owned trucks, and when the truck came to Harare, that was when he loaded 100k into one of the spare wheels of the truck. Then, he loaded another 50k into a separate spare wheel. The rest of the money was kept in the car. He gave me this money when we returned to South Africa—200k in total—for sleeping with his snake just once. He asked me again if I could do it, but I said no because I was too scared to keep sleeping with his snake for money.

With the money, I bought my mom a car. Now, I live in another province. This is my confession. I have seen it all.