Johannesburg - Four months before releasing a video in which he referred to black people using the K-word, Adam Catzavelos had used the very same word while relating a story of robbery to his brother Nic.
This was after a hiking incident where Adam was attacked and when he returned, he told Nic what had happened and he referred to the black robbers who had robbed him as k*****s.
However, Nic did not chastise his brother to discourage him from using the word ever again as he believed that Adam was so angry and worked up about the incident that regardless of what he could have said at the time, nothing would get through.
This was all revealed by Nic during an interview on Radio 702's Eusebius McKaiser show on Monday morning.
The Catzavelos family came under attack after Adam's video went viral which put the family business at risk. Adam was dropped from the family business, St George's Fine Foods which lost clients due to the video and was also banned from setting foot at his children's school.
Speaking to McKaiser, Nic said he had been disturbed and embarrassed by his brother's actions. He said Adam had contacted him in a panic last week Sunday, talking about the video and the fact that it had gone viral.
“The first thing that occurred to me was "who the hell would be sitting on a beach in paradise making a video like this". I actually could not believe what I was seeing.
“I realised that this was going to blow up even though it had not yet reached mainstream media. I told him he is going to ride the storm,” he said.
Nic also said he was not one of the people to whom Adam had sent the video.
Asked whether he thought his brother was a racist, Nic said: “My brother is certainly not a white supremacist, my brother doesn't sit and speak around race on a regular basis. To be quite honest he's not that interested politically. I think he is a multifaceted person. I think he doesn't come from a family of hardcore racists. For me to say that he is a racist unequivocally, I find that very hard. Although I would say that there is racism within him,” he said.
He also confirmed that Adam's actions affected the business but that he understood why some people would not want to be associated with them now.