On the career front, Kyla belied the rumors that she is moving to ABS-CBN. As a matter of fact, she has just renewed her contract with GMA 7, which ensures that she will continue to be seen on SOP for another three years at least.
She is also busy gathering materials for a new album. This will be her fifth album with EMI, which released her Not Your Ordinary Girl album containing her current hit single, her version of Clair Marlo’s Till They Take My Heart Away. Her other albums have included Way To Your Heart (2000), a self-titled album (2001) and I Will Be There (2002). One of the songs that she may include in her forthcoming album will probably be Stevie Wonder’s Ribbons in the Sky, a personal favorite of hers. By the time this article sees print, Kyla will be in the US, where she is slated to do two shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Kyla’s concern now is not to "strike while the iron is hot," but – as Gary Valenciano shared with her once – learning how to keep the iron hot year after year. Kyla has only been in the business for five years, but already, ensuring career longevity is a major concern.
"I want to stay in this business for a long time," says the 24-year-old R&B princess. Kyla admits some of her career moves may mean giving up certain things. But she is confident God has more beautiful surprises in store for her this year.
One of those "beautiful surprises" was finding a new love in the person of budding basketball superstar Rich Alvarez.
The two recently came out in the open, and when Kyla sang during the UAAP opening ceremonies last July, Rich was there to support her, even if he wasn’t playing. He also came to pick her up after this interview. The two look like they are very much in love.
They first met when Rich came to watch one of her shows with his family. Mutual friends introduced them, but nothing happened, since Rich was still seeing someone else at that time. And even when Rich began to visit Kyla at home, she still didn’t take anything seriously. "I didn’t even know who he was!" laughs Kyla. "I’m not fond of watching basketball. I even had to run an Internet search on him. Then when I saw his picture, I said, "Ay, cute pala siya!’ My friends were laughing at me."
Kyla says Rich is very supportive of her career. Kyla also tries to watch Rich’s games whenever she can. "I never expected this," gushes Kyla. "But I’m glad God made things happen."
She’s very happy that finally, "everything is falling in the right places." From here, as the saying goes, there’s no way to go but up for this R&B princess.
The remaining finalists – Kris, Carine, Alex, Gerica, OJ, Lalaine, Reyson, Teena, Bernard, Lud, Jayson and Abby – make up the elite group of CloseUp’s Famous 12. They will now enter a new, tougher, and more exciting level of competition, flashing their killer, confident CloseUp smiles, ultimately leading two of them in the fulfillment of their dreams to become the next CloseUp endorsers.
The Famous 12 are all excited and thankful to have made it to the decisive stage of the contest. The 12 aspiring models will go through even more daunting challenges. Resident critics Plinky Recto and direk Lino Cayetano will continue to give them a lot of encouragement, as well as tips and advice on what they need to work on improving in this final leg of the competition. The contestants’ scores and the winners will be determined by 60 percent text votes from the viewers and 40 percent critics’ ratings of their performance in the challenges.
Watch CloseUp to Fame every Saturday, 4:30 p.m. on ABS-CBN to find out who will become the next CloseUp couple.
(To vote for your favorite candidate, buy a CloseUp pack and text Close Up <your name>, <CloseUp sticker code>, <contestant’s number> to 2256 and get a chance to win a brand new Mazda 3!)