Winnie Mandela talks to press during the Team SA Press Conference at the Holiday Inn on August 25, 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa. | Lee Warren/Gallo ImagesGetty Images
South African anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie Mandela has died aged 81, her personal assistant says.
Winnie Madikizela Mandela was the former wife of South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela.
The couple – famously pictured hand-in-hand as Mr Mandela walked free from prison after 27 years – were a symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle for nearly three decades.
However, in later years her reputation became tainted legally and politically.
Her family are expected to release a statement later on Monday, April 2, 2018.
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Nelson and Winnie Mandela show off their first-born daughter, Zindzi, at their home in Orlando West, Soweto, in 1961. (ALF KHUMALO/AP)
Winnie Mandela talks to press during the Team SA Press Conference at the Holiday Inn on August 25, 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa. | Lee Warren/Gallo ImagesGetty Images
(FILE PHOTO) September 6 sees the long awaited release of the film ‘Winnie Mandela’, a biopic telling the story of Nelson Mandela’s longtime wife, played by Jennifer Hudson. ANC leader Nelson Mandela with his wife Winnie in Soweto, Johannesburg, during a rally held to celebrate his release from prison, 13th February 1990. | Georges De Keerle/Getty Images
FILE – In this photo taken Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010 file photo, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, left, alongside her former husband former President Nelson Mandela, centre, and his current wife Graca Machel attend the opening of Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa. Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife denied Friday, March 12, 2010, that she had sharply criticized the anti-apartheid icon in a British newspaper interview, saying the comments attributed to her had been fabricated. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydaml, File)
QUNU, SOUTH AFRICA – DECEMBER 15 (SOUTH AFRICA AND FRANCE OUT): Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, President Jacob Zuma and Graca Machel during Madiba’s State Funeral on December 15, 2013 in Qunu, South Africa. Nelson Mandela passed away on the evening of December 5, 2013 at his home. He is laid to rest at his homestead in Qunu during a State Funeral. (Photo by Felix Dlangamandla/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
Winnie and Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela receives the Martin Luther king Jr. International Freedom Award from King’s widow Coretta Scott King during a ceremony at the Big Bethel AME church in Atlanta Wednesday, June 27, 1990. Mandela is the first recipient of the award. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
(FILES) — A file photo taken in 1957 shows South African anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress (ANC) member Nelson Mandela posing with his wife Winnie during their wedding. AFP PHOTO
(FILES) African National Congress (ANC) President Nelson Mandela (c), together with his then-wife Winnie (l), Walter Sisulu (r), Veteran ANC secretary-general and Robben Island prisoner and Sisulu’s wife Albertina (2nd-r), are seated 13 February 1990 on the platform in the middle of Soweto Soccer City stadium, during a rally attended by over 100,000 people, to celebrate Mandela’s release from jail 11 February 1990. (Photo credit should read WALTER DHLADHLA/AFP/Getty Images)
Winnie Mandela (left), ex-wife of former South African President, and Graca Macel, widow of Mandela, wipe away tears as his flag-draped coffin arrives at the Mthata airport
Sombre: South Africa’s current president Jacob Zuma sitting between Winnie Mandela and Graca Machel
Gathered to remember Madiba: South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma (2nd left), Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Mandela (left), and the widow of Mandela, Graca Machel (3rd left), sit by his coffin
United in grief: Mandela’s widow Graca Michel and his ex-wife Winnie Mandela tearfully comforted one another as they sat next to president Jacob Zuma and Mandela’s grandson Mandla as he was laid to rest
Grief: Winnie Mandela was dressed in black as she went to see the casket of her ex-husband
His former wife Winnie Mandela
Mandela’s natural leadership skills pushed him front and center during the ANC’s 1952 Defiance Campaign, which urged South African citizens not to cooperate with certain laws that were deemed discriminatory. Several years later he married his second wife, Winnie, in 1957.
Mourning: Mr Mandela’s former wife Winnie Mandela Madikizela (centre), who famously greeted her husband as he left prison, arrives at the ceremony
