Gabriel “Tokkie” du Preez, the adopted son of Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser (aka Anri du Toit) and Ninja (aka Watkin Jones), has accused the couple of physical and sexual abuse and exploitation. The allegations surfaced through a 44-minute interview with the South African group’s former filmmaker Ben Jay Crossman and a subsequent sitdown with News24.
du Preez and his younger sister were adopted by Die Antwoord in 2010 — when he was just nine years old — under foster parenting agreements with their biological mother. They would go on to appear in music videos like “I Fink U Freeky” and “Ugly Boy” while being raised with du Toit and Jones’ biological daughter and a boy from another poor family in Johannesburg.
“They adopted me to be a slave,” he recalled about the experience. “They made me feel like I wasn’t really being loved.” Now 20, he is back in his childhood home, while his 14-year-old sister no longer lives with du Toit and Jones as well.
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He told News24 that the abuse and exploitation began when he was allegedly being forced to record videos degrading his biological family for being poor. According to du Preez, who suffers from a rare skin disease called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, they made him feel like he was the devil.
“They made me swear more and made me believe that I could burn people in hell and that I am the king of hell,” he said. “They told me that I could bring darkness upon the world.”
He also accused Jones and du Toit of forcing him and his sister to undress in front of them whenever the siblings were bought new clothes. They were punished if they were refused.
Even more shocking, du Preez alleged du Toit once exposed herself to him when he was 13 years old. “Yolandi called me into the room, she was naked and vomiting all over,” he said. “She was laying with her legs open like the (sex) doll I had in my room. She called me into the room to call Ninja in the lounge.”
He continued, “The worst part was seeing my supposed-to-be mother or adopted mother being naked in a room, drunk… experiencing my mother being drunk, naked and wanting me to spend time with her in the room while she was naked… that I found very disturbing.”
On a similar note, du Preez claimed his sister recently told him that she no longer wants to visit Jones and du Toit in Cape Town because they always ask her to get naked. “Last December, Ninja and them apparently took my sister into a sauna and everyone was naked in the sauna and wanted my sister to get naked too,” he said. “Why does Ninja want to see my sister naked? She is so small.”
du Preez added, “It is pretty weird, it feels like a pervy vibe to me that Ninja wants to have with my sister. Every time when he phones the family, they ask if my sister is pregnant yet and that is not going to happen, not on my watch.”
Although du Preez received homeschooling through Grade 9, he dropped out and was rented a room outside of Jones and du Toit’s Cape Town mansion before allegedly becoming the driver for their other children.
“I had to wake up at 05:00 to make sure that I am at their house by 06:00 to take the children to school,” du Preez said, adding that he didn’t have a driver’s license at the time. “They had other drivers as well, but I did most of the driving and things for them.”
The aforementioned video interview with Crossman includes more shocking allegations, such as du Preez’s claim that the couple congratulated him for stabbing his older brother. “They were like, ‘Hey, good job man,’” he said. “‘I didn’t actually know you were going to be a man. I didn’t actually expect you to stab your brother, that’s amazing.’”
du Preez also accused them of taking him and his sister to a private clinic to withdraw their blood as part of a supposed ritual, introducing them to gangsters, exposing him to pornography and sex toys, and giving him to alcohol and drugs. Watch the full interview below.
Through their agent Scumeck Sabottka, the duo denied the accusations, simply saying, “Die Antwoord don’t agree with Tokkie’s statements.”
Since forming in the late 2000s, Die Antwoord have released five studio albums, including 2020’s House of Zef. In 2019, the group was dropped from several music festivals after a video surfaced of an alleged homophobic attack against Hercules and Love Affair’s Andy Butler.
Last year, Die Antwoord agreed not to appear at ALT+LDN festival after multiple artists asked the organizers to remove the band from the bill due to past allegations of abuse, which includes multiple accusations of sexual assault.
Read du Preez’s full interview with News24 here.
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