Made it up apparently, her parents named her Marlene Headley and she was a jobbing dance teacher that had various poorly paid jobs until she realised that there is good money in charity work in London - if you give yourself an African sounding name and dress in outlandish tribal clothing to get attention.
The British public will swallow anything as long as it's in the news, and these people know that so they'll do anything for publicity, like the lesbian hat woman, they'll simply make something up to get a bit of attention because they know there is a very long line of mugs waiting to lap it up.