By Kampala Sun writer
Dating and relationships generally are a rollercoaster for your average Joe. But it’s even harder to date when you are in the limelight. Some people only want you for your fame. Users just. Once the fame is gone, they are gone. It becomes worse for the female celebrities. The single ones, once they reach a certain age, are constantly taunted on either having a husband or children or both. Ask Lydia Jazmine or Sheebah.
Lo and behold, should the said female celebrity go on maternity leave, she is forgotten and the same people who were demanding for ‘their’ baby will move on to the next best young thing.
At the height of her fame, radio and TV personality Karitas Karisimbi found herself in the same predicament. She observed that being in the limelight and maintaining a relationship was difficult. In 2006, she left her job at Capital FM.
In a TV interview, Karitas says she hit a stalemate at the Kisementi-based radio station, so she resigned in order to ‘think’. She didn’t just leave fwaa although there were reports that she resigned following speculation that she was going to be taken off the morning show.
“I had savings to pay my rent and other bills,” Karitas said.
She supplemented her savings with income from dealing in women’s hair pieces.
Karitas also used this time to pray to God for a man.
She told God: “During this break, I would love to meet someone. It doesn’t matter which way he comes, whether on a horse or not.”
The radio and TV star wanted someone who was ready to have children and also take care of them. It didn’t matter if he first proposed or not.
Karitas says it took only three days after she prayed that the man – a Nigerian acquaintance – appeared. Another person would interpret this as more of going with what’s available rather than an answered prayer. Anyhow, Karitas says the Oga had seen her in Uganda, but he was not in her league. You know, she was a young, hot thing then, with so many ‘applications’. But now her biological clock was ticking.
“He is a businessman who I met him in the line of work much earlier. I didn’t see myself being in a relationship with him. He was not my cup of tea at that time. Besides, I was in a relationship then.”
A few years later, Karitas conceived. She, however, fled the country to avoid the media frenzy that her pregnancy would cause. She bore twin sons in the UK.
“It was a very difficult pregnancy. I got preeclampsia. The babies were born premature. They spent one-month-and-a-week in the nursery,” she said in the interview.
The boys are almost teenagers now. The rumour mill has it that Karitas and the Oga are now only spoken about in past tense.
Karitas and her babies back in the day
