Esther Arunga officially drops Timberlake surname

Nairobi, Kenya – On October 13, 2026, former television presenter Esther Arunga Timberlake officially dropped her husband's name, adopting her original name, Esther Adongo Arunga, according to a notice published in the Kenya Gazette. The decision was made following her execution of a deed poll on October 2, 2026, and the subsequent registration of the change with the Registry of Documents in Nairobi.

The Gazette Notice No. 16203 urges the public to refer to her exclusively by her new name. This name change occurred years after Arunga was convicted in Australia for her role in the 2014 death of her three-year-old son, Sinclair Timberlake. In July 2019, Arunga was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory to her son's murder, after lying to police about the circumstances surrounding his death.

Initially, she had claimed that Sinclair had fallen down a staircase at their home, but later confessed that her husband had assaulted the child. Prosecutors alleged that Arunga had maintained a false narrative for nearly a month before admitting the truth. Sinclair's death resulted from severe blunt force trauma, as determined by an autopsy.

Quincy Timberlake faced separate charges in connection with his son's murder. The reason for Arunga's decision to revert to her former name remains unexplained in the notice.