Nara Smith, who fell from grace as quick as she rose to fame after being outed for allegedly copying content creator Onezwa has received the SASMA Food Influencer of the Year nod ahead of the equally popular South African-born and based influencer.
Coming off the back of Miss South Africa 2024 finalist Chidimma Adetshina’s citizenship saga, South Africans noted Smith’s ties to Lesotho, though it’s been on record on various international media reports that she’s born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
The other concern revolves around the content that the US-based Smith is believed to have copied from Onezwa Mbola, and now South Africans are demanding that credit be given to the ‘worthy’ SA contestant – who happens to be Mbola, from the rural Eastern Cape.
As renowned entertainment commentator Phil Mphela best puts it, per X post shown below, it seems the drama between Smith and Mbola may be far from over, all thanks to the clear marketing ploy employed by the SASMA organisers.
Another X user @sibusimaseko questioned Smith’s nomination as she’s “barely ever claimed to be South African” she argued.
Two similar complaints were posted on X by Ntokozo Masuku and @tlami22 – as shown below:
Nara Smith vs. Oneswa
Smith, who was born Nara Aziza Pellman in Bloemfontein, South Africa to a mosotho mother from Lesotho and a German father reportedly left the country when she was an infant to live with her parents in Frankfurt, Germany where she spent the remainder of her childhood.
The social media cooking sensation, who at the time of publishing had amassed over 9 million followers on TikTok where she’s known for preparing elaborate meals for her husband and three children from scratch, has an estimated net worth of $2 million.
The 22-year-old now lives in the US where she relocated to in 2020 to pursue a modelling career and is married to a Mormon man.
Smith, who stated in her TikTok that both English and German are her native language, was recently outed for allegedly stealing original content from Mbola just days after the South African native posted hers on her social media page.
It wasn’t long before fans who follow both the two content creator spotted the similarities and came out in full support of Mbola, who in June this year (2024) publicly accused Smith of stealing her content ideas. Mbola, a previous MasterChef SA contestant, has expressed her dissatisfaction with how Smith’s content closely resembles hers, with little tweaks here and there.
Following Mbola’s accusations, Smith threatened legal action against Mbola, demanding a public retraction in what she labelled as “entirely false allegations”.
