Is "Gucci" Grace one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

[The Librarian]

I recall jw saying with some pride that former President of Zimbabwe, Mugabe's wife nicknamed "Gucci" Grace due her spending habits is a JW. Is this correct?

- Z

[JW Insider]

On 11/24/2017 at 11:29 PM, The Librarian said:

I recall jw saying with some pride that former President of Zimbabwe, Mugabe's wife nicknamed "Gucci" Grace due her spending habits is a JW. Is this correct?

I have heard this too, but never from a source I knew personally. I believe it may have been true of the first wife of South Africa's President Nelson Mandela. Per Wikipedia (and other sources):

• Evelyn became a Jehovah's Witness,^[2] and separated from Mandela in 1955 after what her husband described in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, as an irreconcilable conflict between politics and religion. "I could not give up my life in the struggle, and she could not live with my devotion to something other than herself and her family", he wrote. "I never lost my admiration for her, but in the end we could not make our marriage work."^[13]
• Evelyn moved to Cofimvaba in the eastern Cape, where she opened up a shop, and pinned a notice to the gate asking media to leave her alone.^[3] One reporter, Fred Bridgland, did manage to obtain an interview, in which he discussed the proposals surrounding Mandela's release from prison. She was angry at the situation, believing that it was being treated like the second coming of Christ and proclaiming "How can a man who has committed adultery and left his wife and children be Christ? The whole world worships Nelson too much. He is only a man."^[3]
• Evelyn spent much of her later years working as a Jehovah's Witness missionary. She kept the name Mandela, but in the late 1990s she married retired Soweto businessman Simon Rakeepile.^[14]
• She died on 30 April 2004.^[1] Mandela attended the funeral along with his second and third wives.^[15]

Perhaps, since Grace Mugabe also came from South Africa, these facts helped promote a rumor.

I did notice that in the comments section of more than one newspaper article about Grace Mugabe, that commenters left messages that have the sound of something one of Jehovah's Witnesses might say in her defense:

Here's one good example found at: https://dev.newsday.co.zw/2015/11/mugabe-is-suffering-grace/ The article ends on this note:

• On Friday Grace told a rally she often skips meals in solidarity with starving Zimbabweans.

One of the best responses was:

• Please tell the Queen that SOMETIMES we eat in solidarity with the first family

Most of the responses were sarcastic, except possibly this one:

• Chief Mola
• November 23, 2015 at 7:39 am
• This woman’s statement vindicates God’s word. There is nothing worth living for except Jehovah’s word as written in the Bible, a book written by our ancestors not the whiteman (Job 30v30, Song of Songs 1v5&6, Psalms 119v83, Lamentations 5v10). We should be preparing for Jesus Christ’s imminent return not the worldly emptiness that we persue.

I don't mention this as evidence that Grace Mugabe might actually be a JW, but to show how easy it is to keep such a rumor going, if that's what it is.