Back then, she figured in a controversy that led to a legal tussle between her and her manager, Chit Ramos. But time has way of letting bygones be bygones.
Talent and manager have patched things up and Mickey and Chit have resumed their business relationship.
"I’ve learned my lessons," Mickey owns up. "Before, you would see me frowning when things bring me down. Now, I don’t let things bring me down anymore. How? I just think of my blessings!"
True enough, Mickey never for one moment knit her eyebrows at the presscon of her comeback movie, the Sharon Cuneta-Aga Muhlach starrer Kung Ako Na Lang Sana.
She sparkled like newly-opened champagne when someone popped a question at her.
"I feel very, very blessed," she explains. "God has granted not just one, but two of my fondest wishes."
The first wish was to go back to her first love: hosting. Voila! Mickey’s face lights up MTB, where she is a mainstay.
"I’m so grateful to ABS-CBN, because even if the controversy where I figured in erupted here, they still took me in for MTB. I promise not to let them down by giving my hosting job all I’ve got," she vows.
Mickey got her second wish, a comeback movie, soon after. Star Cinema’s Kung Ako Na Lang Sana is her sixth, since starting out as part of the cast of a slew of independent films. Wish granted again.
Mickey can’t believe her eyes and ears when she learned her co-stars were two of her idols, Sharon and Aga.
"I’ve been a Sharon fan ever since. I’d sit by the stairs of our house, just listening to one of her earliest songs, Mr. DJ (which Sharon sang when she was 12)," reveals Mickey.
Face to face with her idols, Mickey found out that she had no reason to feel intimidated, the way she felt the first time they met on the set. Sharon and Aga, who are teaming up for the first time, even shared some of their "trade secrets."
Don’t move your eyebrows too much. Let your eyes and voice do the acting, they advised.
Mickey, of course, obeyed, and is crossing her fingers her efforts will yield effective results.
Like all comebacking celebrities, Mickey got an offer to go bold. But while she admits considering the offer at first, Mickey decided "it’s not yet time for that."
Not when you’re winning young fans over via a daily noontime show (MTB). And certainly not when you get the chance to be directed by Joey Reyes, who cast her in the wholesome role of Aga’s smart, go-getter girlfriend who, sensing how much he loves Sharon, selflessly decides to let him go.
It may be a supporting role, but it’s enough for Mickey, as of now. Besides, who can disappear from the public eye for three straight years, and pull off a comeback feat the way she’s doing now?
Mickey Ferriols is blessed. And she knows that rare is the showbiz personality who can get a second shot at her career the way she does.
No wonder, she is eternally smiling, just like the dolphin tattoo she wears proudly on her left shoulder.