by David Shedrack

• Luis Munana’s story of choosing ‘worldly’ things above family is more challenging than his looks are to the eye.
• Munana was excommunicated from his family’s religious organisation following a previous stint with reality TV on the ninth season of Big Brother Africa, where he had sex with a housemate.
• Since then, Munana has been barred from speaking to his family, friends and other members of the religious organisation unless there are exceptional circumstances.

He’s the dark chocolate heartthrob viewers were looking forward to seeing in the second season of Netflix’s original reality series Young, Famous & African. But, as the show unfolds, some viewers are left heartbroken by the story of how “worldly” things cost Luis Munana a relationship with his family.

The Namibian national reality TV star and entrepreneur’s first stint with reality TV during the ninth season of Big Brother Africa caused the breakdown in his relationship with his family. Munana said he had sex with a fellow contestant in the Big Brother house.

“I come from an extremely religious background,” he says in part of a conversation with co-star Andile Ncube. “Upon coming out [of the Big Brother house], I got excommunicated from the congregation.

“We don’t communicate unless someone is ill or dying,” he tells News24 in an interview. “But I do know they love me, and I love them.”

Without naming the religious organisation his family belongs to, Munana says it has specific rules it abides by, and if you break them, you are reprimanded and given a chance to “repent” and change your ways. He says members of the organisation are meant to “lead by example”.

“If we do things like going on national TV and having sex, it’s a taboo,” he says. “I was given a chance to say that I could leave that life behind and, by that, anything considered worldly. But, aside from that incident on Big Brother Africa, I did other things that are considered worldly.”

Munana’s ventures include his own MCC (sparkling wine), Razul, founder of the MTC Windhoek Fashion Week and he is also a model, among other things.

“By virtue of me being who I am, the congregation basically sees it as a taboo. So I had the choice to leave what I was doing and rejoin the organisation, which meant I could not continue doing what I feel is my calling and my livelihood, but I chose not to put those things behind me. I chose to continue to pursue them.”

He says because of the ex-communication, anyone who is baptised into or has taken an oath or vow to the organisation, including family and friends, may not have contact with him.

“I’m not allowed to socialise with anybody who is part of the organisation; I’m not allowed to step into the homes or be in their presence,” he says. “That also means that I cannot go to my childhood home, and I cannot go to my siblings’ homes because they are still active members of the organisation.”

“If they fraternise with me, then they are sinning against God, and that would not put them in a good standing with the organisation and so forth.”

Despite rarely talking to his parents and broader family, Munana admits in the show that he does miss them, and there is a lot he wishes to share with them.

“I know they don’t have any ill feelings towards me, and I don’t have any ill feelings towards them,” he says as the interview ends. “They are just part of an organisation with rules, mandates and bylaws, which I was part of, but I left. They must abide by that; otherwise, they also risk being excommunicated, and I don’t want that for them.”