MANILA, Philippines - It depends on how you look at it. Either Kim Chiu is the luckiest girl in the world or the most tragic. Because on Tuesday afternoon, she has a question: “Anong meron sa Friday?”
She means the Rebecca Black song, making her the last person on earth who hasn’t been subjected to the aural assault that is the 13-year-old’s universally-maligned single. Photographer BJ Pascual explains why it’s pop-culturally relevant (“Sorry favorite ko talaga yung ‘Friday’”) and I give her the YouTube search names (“‘Friday’ and ‘Rebecca Black’”). But in the thick of the “fun, fun, fun” sharing, it’s hard not to feel a tinge of sadness for a 20-year-old who’s so busy, she doesn’t seem to have time to catch up on her pop culture.
If she’s a bit culturally dense, forgive her. At the ripe old age of 20, Kim Chiu has catapulted herself to the top of the ingenue heap, leaving others to hope that shedding their clothes will also help them shed the “teen” from the “teen star” usually affixed to their names, or else wander aimlessly around the showbiz limbo that is pre-production. She’s a (very) lean, mean hit-making machine, hawking everything from sanitary napkins to her latest movie (Binondo Girl coming soon).
To say that it’s been a rough year would be an understatement. On top of the pressures of headlining big-budget shows and movies, she also has, like most people, a personal life — one that dovetailed last year. Now, as the smoke clears on the break-up of blockbuster love team Kimerald, Kim seems reborn.
“I just finished high school, this year, this March,” she says. “Naiyak ako dun sa speech ko!” She giggles at the memory, reminding everyone in a room full of handlers, managers, makeup artists, photographers, and writers, that this girl they are waiting on, is indeed just a girl. “Ngayon, free yung sched ko kasi I just finished taping Your Song… Ngayon, nag-preprepare na for [the film] Binondo Girl.”
“Ito na yung free week. Mga pictorials, press con, mall — yun na yung rest. Nakaka-relax pa naman ako. Masaya na kami pag merong one free day.”
It’s funny because she keeps saying her schedule is free and that she is resting. She is, after all, in a hotel room, getting primped and primed for an event Olay is throwing in SM Makati, where as endorser of their skin-whitening soap, she’ll appear. When does she actually relax? What does she mean by “one free day”? Today, isn’t particularly free.
“Malling,” she says, is about the only way she relaxes. “Pero sa Rockwell o Shangri-La lang,” she confesses. Anywhere else and she’ll just end up in a stampede of fans eager to get her autograph. She admits that the posh malls are the only ones she feels safe in. “Wala silang pakialam dun. Kahit sino pa andun, hanggang ‘Ay si ano’ lang… Kung meron, konti lang—mga yaya lang at mga alaga nila.”
She giggles, as the implications of what she said dawns on her. Kim Chiu gets away with things like this. She’s a sparrow-y 20, with the kind of frame that suggests fragility. That giggle can break your heart.
And maybe she isn’t missing out on anything, maybe everything before was leading up to this, her nascent rise to stardom. “Loner kasi ako dati,” she says. “Mahiyain, ayaw lumabas ng bahay… Routine ko, school tapos uwi.”
She says that fame has become the “brighter side” to her previous wallflower existence, a nudge that there is in fact, more in store for her. If she doesn’t miss anything, not the freedom of a carefree youth running around the streets of Cebu, it’s because there wasn’t much of anything back then. This is Kim’s time.
Later, I ask if there are times she doesn’t love herself, a cheap ploy to get her talking about those silly rumors that she tried to kill herself after the Kimerald break-up last year. “Dati,” she deadpans. “May times kasi na ang daming negative na sinasabi.”
Now, she barely gives a damn. “Ngayon, tama na yan. Bahala na sila sa buhay nila…” She lets that statement simmer and then, she giggles.