from www.weekendpost.co.za - TWO years after turning her back on the sex industry, controversial former owner of now defunct Port Elizabeth strip club Go-Go Lounge, Toni Coetzee, has vowed never to return to her old life and risk “ending up like Lolly Jackson”.
Speaking publicly for the first time following “mentor” Jackson’s shock murder earlier this month, Coetzee, 43, moved to quash rumours she was considering re-entering the industry, saying: “I’m still on my (religious) walk. I don’t pay attention to rumours. My place is in the Kingdom. You just have to look at guys like Lolly to see how (working in the industry) works out for them.”
Dubbed South Africa’s strip king, Jackson died in a hail of bullets earlier this month, allegedly over a cash dispute with a business associate.
Weeks before his death Jackson – who shortly before his murder pleaded guilty to three counts of assault on his employees – told Weekend Post he was considering opening up a branch of his strip club Teazers in the city.
But Coetzee, who is not working and instead is “living by faith”, said there was a bullet with her name on it.
“I should have been shot a long time ago. I was just another Lolly.”
She referred to his death as being a result of the life he led. “I see Lolly’s death from the spiritual side,” she said. “It was me, Arthur (Savides, who shot himself after suffering a stroke in January) from (Newton Park strip club) Golden Curtain and then Lolly. I was as wicked as Lolly was, but my choice was life.” Coetzee said the industry “learnt from ‘pioneer’ Lolly”.
“He was the first one to have big strip clubs,” she said.
The strip club “madam” was not one to shy away from controversy in her heyday at the Go-Go Lounge, controversially telling outraged residents “if you don’t like us, stay away”.
But, after finding religion in 2008, she closed shop and instead opened up the Go God Cafe along Cape Road, only to have it shut down months later, apparently after a dispute with the municipality over incorrect zoning of the business.
This week she revealed she had been approached by strip clubs in town to manage their establishments – but had turned them down.
“I am scared for the girls (in the industry),” she said. “One thing God has done for me is help me cut out my past. I will never go back to that life again.”
According to Coetzee, her past still had bearing on her. “It takes a long time to get over (working in the industry),” she said.
Despite claiming in 2007 that “we (the Go-Go Lounge) make every effort to ensure that our business is done in a clean and decent manner”, Coetzee has since admitted to abusing drugs, mistreating the girls who worked for her and “trying to kill a couple with an ice bucket”.
“I am grateful for the peaceful life I live now,” she said.
