It was a marriage doomed from the start.
“Right on our honeymoon,” Miriam Quiambao admitted in an exclusive interview with Startalk yesterday, “both of us had doubts. Bagay ba kami sa isa’t-isa? It seemed that he didn’t want to marry me and he was forced to only because he wanted to make me happy.”
The marriage, solemnized in 2004 at a sunset beach wedding in Boracay, has recently been annulled, rendering Miriam and her Italian ex-husband Claudio Rondinelli free again (read: eligible).
“Both of us were not ready,” added Miriam who, according to rumors, wanted to back out on the eve of the wedding. “We were both too in love to notice that we were not the right people for each other.”
Asked to elaborate on what happened, or did not happen, during their honeymoon, Miriam sighed, “I don’t want to dig up the past. I’m just glad that it’s over.”
There were rumors that Claudio didn’t touch her during their first night as husband and wife, and did so only six times during the two years and a half that they lived together in Hong Kong where Claudio owned and managed a fine-dining restaurant. Could Claudio be gay?
“No,” said Miriam, sure of herself, “I don’t think so.”
Her doubts notwithstanding, Miriam turned her back on her burgeoning career and lived a life of leisure with Claudio in Hong Kong. She said that she was a pampered wife but only financially. “I could buy anything that I wanted,” said Miriam, “but then money can’t buy everything.”
In 2005, a year after the couple’s wedding, I met Miriam in Hong Kong at a dinner after watching a concert by Il Divo. With us were Tim Yap and GMA executive Wilma Galvante. Despite her effort to appear happy, we could sense that something was terribly wrong. It was very obvious that Miriam was a bored housewife, like a fish forced out of the water.
Was she a battered wife, perhaps?
“No, I wasn’t. He didn’t hit me physically but emotionally, yes. I felt that I was emotionally abandoned and neglected. Emotional neglect and abandonment is a very serious matter.”
She became so depressed that, according to Miriam, she thought of committing suicide.
“If I didn’t get out of that relationship, I would have died. It was a matter of survival. It came to a point where I could hear voices in my head telling me to kill myself. It was only the voice of the Holy Spirit in my heart telling me softly that if I kill myself, that’s not love. So I hung on to that faith knowing that it was God who was keeping me strong and helping me to survive.”
Was there a third party in the break-up?
“Yes,” said Miriam. “Another woman.”
Miriam came home two years ago to resume her rudely-interrupted career. She hosted some shows on GMA, the network that launched her showbiz career after she became 1999 Bb. Pilipinas-World and replaced Janelle Bautista (dethroned as Bb. Pilipinas-Universe due to lack of residency) in that year’s Miss Universe Pageant in Trinidad-Tobago, finishing first runner-up to Miss Botswana.
She has become a good actress, chalking up a memorable performance as the harassed secretary of Eugene Domingo in Kimmy Dora and as a kontrabida in the ABS-CBN soap Kung Tayo’y Magkakalayo.
“I feel relieved now that my marriage has been annulled. Ilang taon ko rin ipinaglaban yun. Now, I can move on.”
The good thing is that she and Claudio have remained friends.
Come to think of it, would she fall in love again?
Miriam broke into a wide smile.
“Yes, I will. In fact, I have fallen in love. Jesus is my boyfriend.”
(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph or at entphilstar@yahoo.com)