Grace Mugabe

Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe (formerly Goreraza, née Marufu; born 23 July 1965) is a Zimbabwean entrepreneur, politician and the widow of the late President Robert Mugabe. She served as the First Lady of Zimbabwe from 1996 until her husband's resignation in November 2017, a week after he was ousted from power in the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état. Starting as a secretary to Mugabe, she rose in the ranks of the ruling ZANU–PF party to become the head of its Women's League and a key figure in the Generation 40 faction. At the same time, she gained a reputation for privilege and extravagance during a period of economic turmoil in the country. She was given the nickname Gucci Grace due to her extravagance. She was expelled from the party, with other G40 members, during the 2017 coup.

Mugabe was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2014.

Personal life

Grace Ntombizodwa was born in Benoni, South Africa to migrant parents as the fourth of five children in the family. In 1970, she moved to Rhodesia, to live with her mother, Idah Marufu in Chivhu while her father stayed and worked in South Africa to support his family. She attended primary school in Chivhu and then the Kriste Mambo secondary school in Manicaland.

She married air force pilot Stanley Goreraza and they had a son, Russell Goreraza, born in 1984 when Grace was 19 years old.

Whilst working as secretary to the president, Robert Mugabe, she became his mistress at a time when she was still married to Stanley Goreraza – and had two children, Bona born in 1988, named after Mugabe's mother, and Robert Peter Jr.