This is wild.
Earlier this month, the world was freaking out over its first recorded successful birth of decuplets when a woman in South Africa claimed she had given birth to 10 BABIES! Sorry, Octomom! Old news! This would have been a world record.
Related: Woman Gives Birth To NINE Babies — But Was Only Expecting Seven!!
Buuuut a recent government investigation now proves the woman was lying the entire time — she wasn’t even pregnant, despite what it looks like in interviews in which she sports a HUGE baby bump!
According to the Gauteng Provincial Government on Wednesday, “a thorough check with all hospitals” in the area was conducted to “establish the veracity” of Gosiame Thamara Sithole’s claims. What they found was shocking, adding in a statement:
“None of the hospitals in the province, public and private, had any records of such births at their facilities.”
Concerned, they set out to find the 37-year-old woman, who was hard to track down at this point. After reports that she had transferred between hospitals, even her own husband, Teboga Tsotetsi, couldn’t contact her. He began to ask the public to stop donating money because he didn’t know if the birth was real! Wait, WHUT??
He told Pretoria News:
“I appreciate the financial support that we have been getting from members of the public, but I also would like to appeal to the public to stop making money deposits into our accounts until members of the community have seen the babies.”
So even HE was skeptical of his own children’s birth?!
Gosiame was later tracked down by the government who learned she WASN’T EVEN PREGNANT! She was checked in for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation, which has now been extended by a week, with officials sharing:
“It has now been established by medical practitioners that Ms Sithole did not give birth to any babies in recent times. It has also been established that she was not pregnant in recent times.”
Because of these false claims, authorities have also “instructed the State Attorney to institute legal action” against the newspaper that published the original story about the decuplets.
On June 8 (a day after the babies were reportedly born), Pretoria News ran an exclusive story about the celebratory birth, as well as a follow-up article that suggested the “government was trying to cover up medical negligence” by holding the so-called momma in their care. The writer also claimed the government was attempting to discredit him for “fake news.”
Now, the government is denying the outlet’s accusations, saying:
“These allegations are false, unsubstantiated and only serve to tarnish the good reputation of Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the Gauteng Provincial Government.”
The government also insisted it was “deeply concerned by the conduct” of the newspaper, especially “the Editor of the Pretoria News, Mr. Piet Rampedi,” given he ran the story without doing any background check! Apologizing to his staff, Rampedi wrote in an email obtained by News24:
“To be blunt, the story provided detractors with an opportunity to cast aspersions on the professional integrity of not only myself, but also my colleagues in the group. For that, I am extremely sorry.”
Because he was close friends with the lying lady, he felt there was “nothing to investigate” before publishing the story, elaborating:
“They had no reason to lie to me about the pregnancy. For me, it was a story of celebration. Hence, I never demanded documentary proof of the pregnancy, such as scanners and clinic cards, for instance, as I would normally do with an investigative story.”
While we get why he would have wanted to trust his friend, given there’s never been a decuplets birth recorded in HISTORY, we think a little investigation would have proved important!
Also, from the start, the couple were secretive about the information they revealed to the reported, such as not naming the hospital at which the birth took place “for various reasons.” Seems reasonable enough to be suspicious!
Related: Former Supermodel Cheated With Her Identical TWIN SISTER’s Husband!!
Understanding his mistake and knowing the “reputational damage the aftermath of the story has caused for” his colleagues, Rampedi concluded:
“Judging by the sudden turn of events and the reaction from the government and our detractors, I was wrong.”
Wow! So crazy… We hope that Gosiame and Teboga can get the proper mental health care they may need. Clearly, something else is going on if they were so willing to create such an elaborate and public lie like this! Guess we’ll have to wait for this Guinness World Record to break in the future…
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[Image via This Is Us/Hulu]
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