A SOUTH African Lion King actor says he's never met Meghan Markle – despite her claims a Disney star from the country told her marriage to Prince Harry was celebrated like Nelson Mandela's release.
Dr John Kani, who voiced Rafiki in Disney's remake of The Lion King, said the duchess must be "mis-remembering" what happened.
Meghan claimed in her bombshell interview with US mag The Cut that a male South African actor at the film's London premiere in 2019 compared her marrying into the Royal Family to Mandela's historic release from prison in 1990.
While she didn't name Dr Kani, he claims he is the only male South African cast member in the Lion King – and that he wasn't at the premiere.
Dr Kani, a friend of the first black leader of South Africa, said Meghan had made a "faux pas", adding that her claims were "baffling".
And he said he would never have made the comparison between Meghan and Mandela.
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He told the Mail: "I have never met Meghan Markle. This seems like something of a faux pas by her.
"I have I have never met the Duchess at all. I am the only South African member of the cast and I did not attend the premiere in London."
In an interview with The Cut, Meghan described the moment a South African cast member compared her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry with the anti-apartheid leader's walk to freedom.
She said: “He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison'.”
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But Dr Kani said he attended the Hollywood premiere but not the one in the West End.
He added: "The only South African was me playing Rafiki. But I did not go to the opening in Leicester Square as I didn't have the time to do that. It just may be a mis-remembering on her side.
"It is baffling me. I am the only South African in the cast."
Mandela was the hero of the apartheid struggle who almost single-handedly laid the foundations of a free South Africa.
He spent 26 years in jail and then became the nation's first black president, won the Noble Peace Prize and is one of the most revered figures of the 20th century.
The Rafiki actor didn't believe Meghan's comment was an insult but said she must have been "mixed up".
He claimed the Sussexes' big day was "no big deal" in South Africa, a country without any link to the royal wedding.
The South African star said: "In my memory, nobody would have known when she got married, when or what. We had no South African link to the wedding or to her marrying Harry.
"I am truly surprised by this. For me it is a non-event, the whole thing."
Miss Meghan or whatever marrying into royalty cannot in any way be spoken in the same breath or even the same sentence as that moment.
In comparison, Dr Kani remembered history being made by Mandela's release three decades ago.
"The world stopped in February 11 1990," he said, "When the gates of Pollsmoor [Prison] opened, the entire South African nation, the entire African continent and the world were glued."
He added: "That was a world event. Surely Miss Meghan or whatever marrying into royalty cannot in any way be spoken in the same breath or even the same sentence as that moment.
"It lives in our memories forever to the world. It is a kind of, 'Where were you when JFK was shot…where were you when Nelson Mandela was released?'
"You can't really say where you were when Meghan married Harry."
Dr Kani added: "I really wouldn't want to call it an insult. It must be a faux pas. There is something Meghan is mixing up with."
The Lion King actor's confusion follows the interview's backlash yesterday from the Mandela family itself.
The leader's grandson has slammed Meghan Markle for comparing herself to the freedom fighter, calling the comment "surprising".
The Mandela anecdote alone had me gagging.
Speaking to MailOnline, Zwelivelile 'Mandla' Mandela said: "Madiba's celebration was based on overcoming 350 years of colonialism with 60 years of a brutal apartheid regime in South Africa.
"So it cannot be equated to as the same."
The freedom fighter's grandson then issued advice to Meghan Markle, telling her what she needs to do if she wants to compare herself to the likes of an apartheid hero.
The younger Mandela told The Times that the Duchess of Sussex needs to "get out there" and help others.
The day before Sun columnist Piers Morgan also lashed out at Meghan’s comments.
He said: “Even by Markle standards, this is a revoltingly self- aggrandising, disingenuous and hypocritical load of royal-bashing tosh.
"The Mandela anecdote alone had me gagging.
“How dare she use her title to keep trashing the institution that gave it to her? Shameless and shameful.”
The uproar also comes as meghan was blasted for apparently suggesting the British press called her children the n-word.
Meghan told The Cut's Allison Davis she resented allowing pictures of Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, to be circulated to the media.
The article then goes on to imply her reasoning is down to racist language – appearing to suggest the press had used the n-word to refer to her children.
Meghan explained: "There’s literally a structure by which if you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota.
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“Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the n-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?"
It's unclear who Meghan was referring to when she said "people".
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