Candy Litchfield is a South African television personality best known for being a presenter on Channel O from 1997 to 2003.
Candy Litchfield co-hosted Idols SA season 1 way back in 2002 with Matthew Stewardson but midway through the season, Matthew was fired after relapsing into a longstanding drug and alcohol problem. He was replaced by Sami Sabiti who co-hosted the remainder of the season with Litchfield.
Career
Candy’s rise to stardom began when she won the Miss Swaziland crown in 1992 and an unforgettable place in the subsequent Miss World competition.
This led to a two and half year spell on Swazi TV, before moving to Johannesburg to study film, radio and television in 1996. On completing her studies she made the move to Channel O, where she was one of the channel’s most popular presenters.
In 2002 when M-Net bought the rights to host a little-known show called Idols, a reality singing competition that originated in the United Kingdom, Candy was appointed as the host alongside Matthew Stewardson.
Candy also presented the Lotto on e.tv from 2004 to 2006.
After being off the television screens for some time, Candy Litchfield began presenting a new South African gossip series titled ‘Flash’ on SABC3 alongside Viwe Soga and Isabella de Villiers In April of 2009.
Marriage
Candy Litchfield got married to actor Hlomla Dandala way back in December 2000. They had their first child, a daudhter named Ziyanda Dandala who was born towards the end of 2003.
In March of 2005, Hlomla Dandala confirmed that he and Candy had separated but said there were no legal proceedings under way.
This was after he was spotted in the company of a former Miss South Africa finalist, Nkele Motsomi, at the Sunday Times/ ELLE TV Style Awards on Friday 4 March 2005.
Hlomla said that Litchfield had moved out of their home in Fourways, north of Johannesburg, towards the end of 2004.
“We’ve not been living together for a while now,” he stated.
“This is no secret,” said Dandala.
On his relationship with Nkele Motsomi, who was 23 years at the time, Dandala said: “I asked her to accompany me to the awards.
“Are you guys going to do this every time I ask anyone to accompany me to an event or is this unique to her?”
After some time, Candy and Hlomla worked out their differences and got back together, they went on to have their second child.
However in August on 2013, they formally parted ways.
In November of 2013, City Press reported that the couple had divorced scotching simmering rumours that they were trying to resuscitate their marriage.
The cause of the divorce was that Dandala had fathered three children with three different women out of wedlock, the women are former Miss City Press Nkele Motsomi, air hostess Sisanda Gqirhana and magazine employee Brenda Nyakudya.
The couple sold their Fourways house, cars and household furniture. A family friend, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Hlomla has granted Candy custody and they have arranged visitation rights.”
Dandala confirmed that their marriage had come to an end, but denied it was because he had fathered children outside of their marriage.
“Yes it’s true [that we are no longer together]. It’s common knowledge that Candida and I split a while back. Our divorce has been finalised and she has not been my wife for some years now,” he said in a statement.
“When I fathered my children, we had already separated. It is false that I fathered the children while I was with Candy.”
Dandala refused to reveal the reasons behind their break-up, saying only: “As with any divorce, it is the inability to find common ground.”
In March of 2014, Candy filed a suit at the Randburg Magistrate Court against her ex-husband for failing to pay for the maintenance of their two children. Dandala arrived at the maintenance court to challenge the suit.
Litchfield claimed that Dandala was in arrears to the tune of R56,000 after seven months of failing to cough up.
A source close to the case said: “There was an agreement that he should pay R4,000 for each of the two children, but he defaulted. She decided to take him to court because he deliberately ignored her pleas to pay the money.”
The source said Dandala had asked the court to reduce the amount he was paying for each child from R4,200 to R1,200.
Dandala was pleading poverty, he wanted to pay R2,200 for both kids, but Candy was more than ready to fight him in court.
During the court hearing, the former couple sat a few metres away from each other and exchanged dirty looks in court while their lawyers were trying to settle the matter.
The magistrate postponed the hearing to 19 May 2014 after the two parties failed to agree on settlement terms out of court.
When Litchfield left the court, Dandala remained behind chatting to his lawyers. He then caused a scene when he confronted court officials and members of the public who were sitting on the benches in the corridors, he accused the onlookers of taking pictures.
When they asked him what he was talking about, he said he saw some flashlights and was sure that they were taking pictures of him,” a court official said.
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