Actress spices Jozi up with homemade chilli sauce

Thandeka Rapitsi, an aspiring model and actress turned food industry entrepreneur, describes herself as a born hustler.

That much is evident from her varied career, which has taken her from starring roles in eTV’s popular series eKasi: Our Stories in 2015 to selling clothes and working as a manager at the Taboo nightclub in Sandton. Her latest venture is Chilli Babe, the fledgling hot sauce company she started, partly to escape the gruelling hours and pressures of the entertainment industry.

"That life, I don’t miss it," she says of her days working as a nightclub manager, which typically involved shifts that started at 22:00 to 23:00 and only finished at 04:00 or 05:00 the next morning. "I’m a mom, so I couldn’t be sleeping all day and then be up all night. I needed to help my daughter with schoolwork and make sure she goes to school."