Ed Teal was the father of a "perfect family" who were the front-runners to win the Sunshine Family of South Africa competition in Sun City in 2008. Originally from Bloemfontein, his wife Pamela and daughter Ellie arrived at the resort having supposedly completed a 1000km across the Namibian Desert in aid of Leukaemia research. Upon being interviewed by host Alfie Vlok, he told the television audience that in the middle of a sandstorm, Ellie had reached for the violin in her backpack and played “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” and that gave them the impetus to carry on. The Teals presented an image of them being healthy, non-drinking, religious and striving for perfection but fellow contestant Cilla Battersby-Brown grew suspicious and forced son Chesney to capture whatever dirt he could on camcorder. Hidden in the closet of their room, Chesney easily got his footage as away from the public Ed was a hard-drinking, bullying, control freak who needed the prize money to pay for the plastic surgery he had forced his wife to undertake. Chesney was struck on Ellie and hesitated to hand over the footage. Ed gloated over every disaster that struck the Battersby-Browns but he didn't know about the captured footage which Chesney had eventually handed over to Cilla. She in turn gave it to Alfie. When the Battersbys were disqualified for cheating, the Teals should have won but the judges, having seen the footage, withdrew the prize money. Pamela told Ed that she had had enough of him and was divorcing him.