Reality TV star Tebogo Ramokgadi claims e-TV’s new drama Smoke and Mirrors was his idea, and he’s got the receipts showing how a member of his team had coincidentally pitched it to the channel’s series producer, Khanyi Nxumalo years ago.
Tebogo Ramokgadi brings receipts to Smoke and Mirrors IP tug-of-war
As reported by Zimoja, Ramokgadi turned up receipts showing proof he registered the intellectual property ‘Smoke N Mirrors’ with the CIPC in 2019, around the same time he had spent R1 million filming a pilot for a show of the same name, which was set to star the likes of Pastor Chichi, Keabetswe Mashugane, Lasizwe Dambuza, and Motshabi Tyelele to name a few.
One of Ramokgadi’s teammates, Leo Phiri, reportedly pitched the show to Nxumalo and in a conversation over WhatsApp, the eTV series producer showed a great deal of appreciation for the plot, albeit she had reservations about the lack of Tswana language to enhance the storyline.
According to Ramokgadi, eTV never formally picked up his show idea, but bizarrely, the channel premiered a telenovela titled Smoke and Mirrors on Monday, 17 April 2023, with a bizarrely similar synopsis.
Ramokgadi’s version was a 13-part series set in a mining town and followed the story of a royal family and their interactions with a celebrity couple
On the other hand, eTV’s version, produced by The Final Chapter Productions, follows the story ofThandiswa, a hairdresser who trades in the dark escort industry by night as an undercover plot to overthrow The Unholy Trinity, a group of morally corrupt men whose influence knows no bounds in Emnyameni.
Ramokgadi claims the similarities between the two shows are too close to be coincidental, and he is now looking into suing e-TV.
One actress who was cast in Ramokgadi’s pilot says she fears exposing her name in case the channel blacklists her from their shows but when she first saw the trailer, she thought that “they commissioned Tebogo’s show, or he sold it to them.”
“I haven’t watched the e-TV version, but I just saw the name,”she said
Ramokgadi’s project manager, Owen Ndlovu, also stated that the current production has similarities from the trailer to Ramokgadi’s show, but he had no role in the live iteration.
Despite these claims, e-TV has not responded to the allegations.
