Kea Leburu is a South African actress and dancer best known for her role as Bontle on the SABC1 soap opera Skeem Saam. Born Keamogetswe Trudy Leburu in Kagiso township west of Johannesburg she attended Bosele Primary School, where she discovered her interest in and love for netball. She went on to matriculate from Mosupatsela High School.
Kea was raised by her grandparents following the loss of both her parents – her father in 2004 and her mother a year later in 2005. She sings, dances, acts, MCs events and maintains a healthy lifestyle by playing netball. While studying at the Market Theatre Laboratory she was a dancer for the award-winning pop group Mafikizolo, from 2013 to 2014.
Her first television audition was in 2006 for the kid’s show YOTV, but after that experience she decided that TV was not for her. In 2013, however, she was discovered by mentor Peter Se-Puma in Soweto and landed a cameo role on the e.tv soapie Rhythm City, which marked her screen acting debut.
Shortly thereafter she was an extra on the SABC1 soapie Generations and the Mzansi Magic soapie Zabalaza. She also had a small role on a “Lokshin Bioskop” film on Mzansi Magic.
2014 was a breakout year for Keamogetswe, landing numerous high-profile dancing gigs for Mafikizolo at Macufe Mangaung African Cultural Festival, the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs), the Metro FM Awards, the PSL Awards and an Audi car launch. She also performed a theatre play called Four Husbands for Malindi.
More notably, she made her first appearance in the recurring role of Bontle on the SABC1 youth soap opera Skeem Saam, whoch continued into the fourth and fifth seasons.
In 2015 she returned to Zabalaza for a cameo on the third and final season of the show.
In early 2016 Kea guest starred as Nomonde in an episode of the e.tv anthology drama series eKasi: Our Stories entitled “Umndeni Wami” (Season 6, Episode 18). In the episode, an unforgiving young man wants to give his wife a beautiful wedding but can’t afford it, until he receives an unexpected inheritance from a deceased uncle – only to discover that the money actually came from his ex-convict father.
She also guest starred as Busi on the second season of the SABC1 docu-drama series Ngempela; and as Magauta on the fifth season of the SABC2 sitcom Ga Re Dumele.
