Pamela Teal was the mother in 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, her husband Ed and daughter Ellie arrived at the resort having supposedly completed a 1000km across the Namibian Desert in aid of Leukaemia research. The Teals presented an image of 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, telling her she had saggy boobs and hooked nose. Chesney was struck on Ellie and hesitated to hand over the footage but eventually did so to Cilla. She in turn gave it to competition host Alfie Vlok. When the Battersby-Browns were disqualified for cheating, the Teals should have won but the judges, having seen the footage, withdrew the prize money. Pamela came out from under the domination of her husband and told Ed that she was divorcing him.