American actress Gabrielle Union buried her late father’s ashes beneath the vines she and her family planted at Klein Goederust Boutique Winery in Franschhoek, Cape Town, during her recent visit to South Africa. Image: @gabunion on Instagram
American actress Gabrielle Union has shared an emotional moment from her recent Cape Town visit, revealing that she buried her late father’s ashes beneath the vines she and her family planted together at Black-owned winery Klein Goederust in Franschhoek. Her father Sylvester Cully Union Jr. passed away on 3 April 2026 at the age of 81 after a years-long battle with dementia.
American actress Gabrielle Union has turned what was already an emotional return trip to South Africa into one of the most deeply personal moments of her public life. The 53-year-old shared an Instagram reel on Saturday documenting the moment she buried her late father’s ashes beneath the vines she and her family had planted together at Klein Goederust, a Black-owned boutique winery in Franschhoek, Cape Town, during a previous visit in 2022.
“Burying my dad’s ashes at a winery in Cape Town, under the very vines we planted together as family just a few years ago,” Union wrote in her caption. “May you nourish the earth the way you nourished us. May the blessings be bountiful. May the abundance be wrapped in peace, kindness, and consideration.”
A Father Lost to Dementia
Sylvester Cully Union Jr. passed away on 3 April 2026 at the age of 81 following a prolonged battle with dementia. Gabrielle Union had been publicly open about watching her father’s deterioration over the years, describing the experience with raw honesty on social media following his death.
“No matter how much you think you know about dementia, nothing prepares you for the painfully slow disappearing of your loved one,” she wrote after his passing. “First it is repeating words or forgetting little things here or there, then BOOM, he can not swallow or walk.”
She remembered her father as a die-hard Nebraska football fan who instilled in her a fierce work ethic and a deep understanding of what it means to be part of a team. She described him as a perfectly imperfect man and father who did not shy away from his flaws but faced them, made amends and kept showing up.
Klein Goederust: Where Family Was Made
The choice of Klein Goederust as the final resting place for her father’s ashes was not a random one. Union first visited the winery during her 2022 trip to South Africa, when she celebrated her 50th birthday in Cape Town and Johannesburg. During that visit she and her family planted grape vines on the estate, an experience that clearly left a deep impression. When she returned to South Africa in 2026 she went back to taste the wine made from those very grapes, describing it as getting to taste the fruit of their labour.
Klein Goederust is owned by Paul Siguqa and his wife Makhosazana, known as Khosi. Union has described the couple as having become family to her, praising the winery as the only Black-owned winery in Cape Town and returning to it on each of her visits to the country.
The owners of Klein Goederust responded to the outpouring of love following the burial post, saying their doors and hearts are always open to Union and that South Africa will always be her home.
A Love Letter to South Africa
The emotional burial moment was part of a broader Cape Town visit that Union documented generously on social media and that went viral in South Africa for several reasons. She was filmed in a casual surprise appearance at Nkula Cocktail and Wine Boutique, where she was caught on a TikTok video singing along to Mariah Carey’s We Belong Together with a local woman named Beauty Mangali. The clip spread rapidly across South African social media, with South Africans charmed by her easy warmth and her evident comfort in the city.
She also visited AKJP Studio, a fashion concept store featuring 40 South African designers, joking that she had planned to pick up only one or two things before admitting she had a problem when she found herself unable to stop. She was spotted around the city filming a project with fellow American actor Michael Ealy, whose details had not been publicly confirmed at the time of publication.
Award-winning actress Viola Davis, herself a frequent visitor to South Africa, jumped into Union’s comment section to describe the country as her second home. Union’s caption on her South Africa love letter post read simply: “I left my heart in South Africa.”
South Africans Respond
The reaction from South Africans to Union’s Cape Town posts has been overwhelmingly warm. Her decision to bury her father’s ashes at Klein Goederust has been described by many as one of the most moving tributes to South Africa by an international celebrity in recent memory. Her visible love for the country, its people, its food, its wine and its culture has resonated deeply with South Africans who are accustomed to seeing their country portrayed in far less flattering terms on the international stage.
Commentary across social media reflects the sentiment that Union’s relationship with South Africa is genuine rather than performative and that her decision to choose Klein Goederust as the place where she said goodbye to her father speaks to a connection with the country that goes beyond tourism.
Editors Note All information in this article is based on Gabrielle Union’s public Instagram posts and media reports published between 19 and 24 May 2026.