Oscar has not had “acting lessons”, according to Pistorius media manager

Following the controversial open letter which Jani Allan published on her blog last week (14 April 2014), the Pistorius Family – through Anneliese Burgess, Media Manager – has released a statement claiming that Allan’s suggestions that Oscar had “acting lessons” are devoid of all truth.

The paralympian, who is on trial for the alleged murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year, has at various times in court broken down in tears, leading some court watchers to wonder whether he has had acting lessons.

In her Open Letter to Oscar, well-known South African journalist Jani Allan wrote “I have it from a reliable source that you are taking acting lessons for your days in court. Your coach has an impossible task.”

The letter was re-published in various media outlets around the world (including on SAPeople with Ms Allan’s permission), with numerous editors choosing to run with the acting accusation as their main headline, such as this one used by the New York Post – “Pistorius took ‘acting lessons’ before crying on stand”.

Yesterday, the family felt compelled to release a statement denying this accusation. The following message from Anneliese Burgess, was published on the OscarPistorius.com website:

We have noted the media reporting on a blog entry by the former South African columnist, Jani Allan, in which she alleges Oscar Pistorius took “acting lessons” in preparation for his trial.

We have not thought it necessary to comment on the content of this blog entry, but following numerous media enquiries over the past few days, we are unfortunately forced to state the following for the record:

• Ms Allen has never met Oscar Pistorius and any knowledge she professes to have of our client can only be described as fictitious.
• Her suggestion that Mr Pistorius “took acting lessons” is totally devoid of any truth.
• We deny in the strongest terms the contents of her letter in as far it relates to our client and further deny that our client has undergone any “acting lessons” or any form of emotional coaching.
• This type of comment makes a mockery of the enormous human tragedy involving the Steenkamp family and our client and his family.