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Bonnie hangs out dirty linen

IN A world that is littered with dull and over-priced celebrity autobiographies, actress Bonnie Henna, in Eyebags and Dimples, is doing justice to the phrase "tell-all" - especially with her candid account of her troubled marriage.

The former Survivor Maldives3 contestant, who now lives in Cape Town - away from her husband and fellow actor Sisanda, who resides in Johannesburg - is set to launch the book next Thursday in Rosebank, northern Johannesburg.

The pair met after Sisanda landed a lead role in the SABC1 drama series Tsha Tsha and married in December 2005.

Despite having separated before, they have not entertained speculation of an impending divorce.

But Henna almost sounds bewildered as to how they're still together - on numerous occasions in the book she praises her husband's patience.

"There were long, cold silences in the mornings. We were newly married, supposedly in the honeymoon phase, yet I had no energy for anything, not for getting up, sex, eating or even - perhaps especially - talking to my husband."

But both of them were unaware that she had clinical depression, which she was diagnosed with later.

She then adds retrospectively in the 239-page book: "The most hurtful thing for him had been my distrust of his intentions. I had accused him of not having my best interests at heart; I always suspected him of ulterior motives and had often accused him of deliberately trying to hurt me. These moments scarred him."

But she is frank too about her calamitous dating record before she met the father of her children.

She dated Clinton Motaung before she found out about his death - in a car accident - in a newspaper.

She then dated Vusi Zion (formerly Twala). They met when she joined magazine programme Zap Mag .

But when he started his own production company and she joined Technics Heart of the Beat, they began to drift. She writes: "My new-found independence made Vusi uncomfortable, as though I'd crossed into a space he couldn't control or define. When he found a pack of cigarettes in my room one day it sparked a huge fight, and he insisted I flush it down the toilet and never do it again".

Johannesburg businessman Michael Strauss' parents didn't take kindly to their relationship. They were "horrified" he was dating a black woman, she writes. Strauss' father refused to meet her, and his mother referred to Henna as her son's "friend".

The actress also looks at her and Sisanda's failed attempt at cracking it in Hollywood and the subsequent financial woes they found themselves in.

Her confusing childhood, in which at 5 years old she lost her grandmother to alcohol addiction - she even recounts how she watched her drink methylated spirits when she couldn't afford alcohol - and her mother becoming suicidal.

Henna's last major production was Invictus. She's recently been on the small screen in a villainous role in Rhythm City.

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