Bonnie Mbuli


Bonnie Mbuli is a South African actress, businesswoman, and television personality.
She was a presenter in one of the most watched television shows in South Africa, Afternoon Express on SABC 3. In 2020, she played Jasmine Hadley in the BBC drama series Noughts and Crosses.

Early years

Mbuli was born in Soweto, South Africa in 1979. She attended the Dominican Convent School and then Greenside High School. The eldest of three children, she was discovered at a bus stop on her way home from school by an actor's agent who cast her in her first job on the television series Viva Families in 1992, when she was 13 years old.

Career

This was followed with cameo roles in international productions Born Free 2 and Cave Girls. Mbuli went on to present various magazine programs for television including Teleschool, Zapmag, Technics Heart of the Beat and Limits Unlimited. In 2001, she landed a lead role in the hit television soap Backstage, which was aimed at South African youth. She was later cast in the role of Portia in Gazlam. This was followed by a role in the detective series, Zero Tolerance.
Mbuli hosted a talk show in South Africa on SABC 1, True-Life, won a role in the mini-series Homecoming, and appeared in two Canadian television series: Charlie Jade, a sci-fi epic and Scouts Safari - an adventure series set in the African wild. She completed a major role on Home Affairs for Penguin Films; a popular thirteen-part series that interlinked the lives of five very different women. Mbuli went on to appear in television series Soul City and Hillside in which she played the lead on both, for SABC 1 and SABC 2. She was then cast in the ground-breaking series, The Philanthropist for NBC.
In film, she has played the role of singer Dolly Radebe, in Drum, the lead role in a Danish film, Blinded Angels. In 2006, she played Precious Chamusso in Catch a Fire.
She played Zindzi Mandela in Clint Eastwood’s film, Invictus. She starred in E.tv's Rhythm City; on Mzansi Magic's drama series Rockville as Dudu, and on E.tv's groundbreaking crime investigation series Traffic. In 2015, Mbuli starred opposite Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh as police woman Grace Mthembu in the popular British series Wallander.

Personal life

Mbuli was married to actor and television personality Sisanda Henna and they had two children together, one of whom was adopted. She adopted her husband's surname. After their divorce, she authored an autobiography.

Filmography