Hot lunch with Joëlle Kayembe Hagen

I was driving up Munro Drive, the glorious switchback from lower to upper Houghton, when I spotted a large box perched precipitously on the side of the hill with an Illy sign, and the promise of coffee flashed before my eyes.

This is where people — mostly tourists — come to get a clear grasp of what is meant when people describe Joburg as an urban forest. I imagine it’s also the locus of many a proposal because of the whole forest spectacle. The Viewpoint Coffee Shop is where I decide to take Joëlle Kayembe Hagen, who you may fondly recall as the Sprite Zero hottie whose frustration with her exasperated date — who is hooting outside while she picks out a dress — inspires a zero-sum game with her outfit choice.

That ad and the sight of Joëlle in her lingerie launched her into the popular South African consciousness. As too did many ad campaigns, multiple magazine covers, a spot in the famous Sports Illustrated swimwear edition, and a guest starring slot on a Ludacris video. 

It was also the cause of a huge rift with her conservative parents, who were expecting their eldest daughter — a hitherto compliant child who had moved, at age 11, with her family to South Africa from the DRC in 1994, when civil war was threatening — to pursue a psychology degree and continue to set a studious example for her seven younger siblings.

“My mom was on her way to being a nun when she met my dad. So it’s not only conservative, it’s also very religious. So for my family to wake up to a TV commercial of me in my underwear, it wasn’t just a scandal, it was insulting. It was everything you can imagine that you shouldn’t do when you come from where I’m from.

“I thought this ad was going to be aired for three, for six months. That was the contract we signed. I thought, this is a career move; that I can then land more commercials, it’s just for six months. But six months became a year, which became two, and three. I think it went on for seven years. And by that time, even my grandmother had seen it.

“I became that cousin or aunt that everyone warned their daughter about. It was very scandalous — I had to leave my home. I moved to Cape Town, which was, in a way, the next transition in my career, because that’s where all the international stuff is happening. But I was crying every night. All I wanted to do was go home to my siblings, and I couldn’t.”

Her parents relented — after four years — and she was invited back for Christmas. She says being the eldest became her superpower. “It shapes you, for better or worse. But in my case, it became my superpower.”

She was scouted twice by the same agency. When she finally caved in to their repeat offers of representation, her career became stratospheric.

“That commercial brought me a lot of career opportunities. It catapulted me into a whole different career path because now I wasn’t just a girl, I was a name. People recognised me on the street. So the agency just built on that and pushed me, and I ended up on covers of magazines. I ended up being one of the first black girls to have done a lot of things at the time.

“I’m so grateful that I modelled then and not now. What the girls have to deal with now is hectic because digital, internet and social media has democratised the industry. Anyone and anybody can become a model, whereas before there was a mould you had to fit, and if you didn’t fit — that’s it, you were out.

“Now I think it’s a lot worse because there isn’t a mould, so everybody’s trying. Everyone is just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks. And that’s way more dangerous than going to an agency and they say you’ll never be a model. It’s hard to hear, but at least you can give that up and move on with your life, instead of starving yourself, Botox, implementing all sorts of marketing gimmicks to see if it’ll work — and finding out 20 years later that, no, it’s never gonna work.”

Joëlle’s modelling career gave her a passport to the world. “And at the time, there was no industry that could have paid me that kind of money, and then still take me round the world and give me an independence.”

It also allowed her to explore her artistic side — visiting galleries and collections across the world. It’s an aspect of her interests that she is now fully exploring in Norway, where she lives with her husband. She has studied theatre and acting, performed in several plays — and is painting in her studio and taken several commissions.

The art was at the root of all her dreams. “I always wanted to be an artist, but it was not an option growing up. So when the money and the career started coming through, I thought here’s my chance to sponsor myself as an artist.

“I have learnt that in life, when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, you have two choices. Be scared or jump. If the parachute doesn’t open, you crash, but you know you tried. But what if it opens? So I was like, this parachute will open — because the worst case is I go back to campus.”

This interview originally appeared in Sunday Times Lifestyle