Who could resist retweeting a picture of a flaming hot woman draped in a jaw-dropping swimsuit in the colours of the ruling party?
@ANCJhb certainly could not and reposted the picture on their Twitter account this week.
But who exactly was the woman who crossed social media platforms on Wednesday to become the sizzling sensation under the @ANCJhb comment, “What do you make of this new ANC swimwear? #RegistrationWeek #VoteANC”?
By the end of the day the salacious image was removed and today the Saturday Star can reveal that the social media hottie is not an ANC supporter but Jamaican designer Errice Alicia.
She posted her selfie to her over 32 000 Instagram followers on Monday and captioned it, “repping (representing) my Jamaica colours today, pool time”.
She was strutting the Jamaican colours, not the ANC’s, but her picture was appropriated by Joburg ANC’s Twitter account.
In her Blogspot, Alicia described herself as “the craziest, most down-to-earth person you will ever meet. Talkative, poetic, honest, enjoy being beautiful to the point some may say narcissistic”.
Alicia’s picture went from Instagram to Twitter when one of her Instagram followers, Sydane Thiega, from Jamaica but who lives in the Bronx in New York, posted the picture with the caption, “Your wife says she (is) going to the beach like this, wyd [what (do) you do]?” The tweet was retweeted 333 times on Thiega’s account and hundreds of times on by other Twitter users.
Two days later, an ANC official came across Alicia’s picture and posted it in what seemed like a campaign tweet on the party’s timeline.
An ANC spokesman in Joburg, Jolidee Matongo, told a local radio station this week that the party would launch an investigation into how the picture came to be used on its official Twitter account.
The ANC tweet was eventually taken down and the party sent out an apology.
By Thursday, Alicia had realised that her picture was being circulated in South African media.
She posted a screen grab of an article captioned, “A South African news story in which I’m mistaken for a South African party cheerleader of the ruling party”.
A few hours later, she stumbled across another article online from www.thisisafrica.me. At this point she became annoyed.
“No man, I’m seriously not amused. Just goes to show you can’t take what you see on social media as fact. Until a person confirms any information you should always have doubts. This is why I don’t entertain gossip directed at me or anyone else. SMH (Shaking my head) it was just simple swimwear.”
Her followers on Instagram also shared their thoughts. The.turnup.page said, “girls pay hundreds of dollars to get a professional photo shoot and still don’t look good. A beautiful woman, Errice Alicia, takes a simple bathroom selfie and goes global”.
By Friday evening Alicia’s selfie had more than 31 000 likes and about 2 000 comments on Instagram. She did not comment to an e-mail the Saturday Star sent her.
theedgesearch.com, an international news website said on Friday Alicia was consulting with her lawyers to sue ANC for using her picture without her permission.
The website said she was looking tosue ANC R5 Million.
Matongo said on Friday that Alicia had not contacted the party.
“We can not predict how we will react if she gets in contact with us, we will wait to hear from her.”
Matongo said they have found the person responsible.
“We now know who posted the picture, It is still early to name them. we will reveal who it was in due time.”
Saturday Star