Watchdog: Bad Influencer
South Africa's new women-led Netflix TV series turns high fashion into high stakes
Released October 31, 2025, South Africa’s women-led crime series, Bad Influencer, is your next binge.
Kitty Killer here, your resident watchdog putting great TV and film on your radar. Today, I’m spotlighting Bad Influencer, a new South African women-led crime drama now streaming on Netflix.
Created by Kudi Maradzika, the series — which dropped on October 31, 2025 — follows BK (Jo-Anne Reyneke), a single mother turned con artist who teams up with rising influencer Pinky (Cindy Mahlangu) to sell counterfeit luxury bags, hustling to pay off ruthless loan sharks and secure a better school for her neurodivergent son. Their side hustle pulls them deep into each other’s orbit.
And into Johannesburg’s criminal underworld.
Writer Tambay A. Obenson notes in Akoroko that Maradzika’s Bad Influencer is “the first Netflix-commissioned series to come from the Realness Institute’s Episodic Lab, a talent incubator that mentors African writers from concept to pitch.”
The central crime blends high fashion, influencer culture, and the daily grind of survival in South Africa, make it uniquely Black woman-coded and refreshingly local. Even the loan sharks are hairstylists! A perfect touch of peak feminine crime, danger unfolding in the same spaces where women build beauty and community.
You’ll also spot a few familiar faces. South African model and 2019 Miss Universe Zozibini Tunzi stars in her first major role as Naomi, also a former Miss Universe with attitude and secrets to spare. Fatal Seduction leads Thapelo Mokoena and Nat Ramabulana reunite here, and it’s a treat watching them together again. If you haven’t seen Fatal Seduction yet, add it to your binge-list too; its second season dropped in August 2025, making it fresh Watchdog material. With Unseen’s Brendon Daniels also in the mix, Bad Influencer feels distinctly self-aware, paying tribute to the wave of contemporary women-led South-African television.
Or maybe the South African Netflix network is that tightly knit.
Bad Influencer is steeped in contemporary Black diasporic culture, with references that travel far beyond South Africa. It name-drops British Ugandan actor Daniel Kaluuya and the Nigerian reality TV star and style icon Swanky Jerry from Young, Famous, & African.
The show seamlessly blends drama, humor, and action. It’s full of energy without ever losing its emotional core. If you love stories where high fashion meets high stakes, this one’s worth your next binge.
Have you seen Bad Influencer yet, or are you planning to? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
I’m all ears, hunters.