Will the controversies that Awra Briguela, Andrea Brillantes and Ricci Rivero got into recently negatively affect their respective careers? But, then, knowing that fans can be whimsical and avid about the bold and the beautiful, the opposite can transpire instead.
As of this writing, Briguela, 19, a transwoman, has to face charges about her allegedly initiating a commotion outside a bar in Makati which caused physical injury to a young man, Mark Christian Ravana, whom Briguela allegedly demanded to disrobe in front of her inside the bar. She was there along with 24 friends, some of whom looked like they were transwomen, too.
The guy took off at least his shirt but Briguela wanted him to pull down his pants, too. Ravana refused, decided to leave the bar with his friends, but Briguela ran after him, and thus caused a melee outside the bar. She reportedly even resisted arrest but ended up in detention at Makati City Jail for one night and two days. She’s out on bail now.
Did you know Briguela was on the cover of a magazine in English (Candy) for teen girls for the month of June?
In the interview, she made it clear that she really wants to have a “fierce” branding. That interview may have been done a month before the bar incident, and forcing a guy to disrobe may not be part of her desired “fierce” branding. The image may have to do more with her outfits.
The magazine didn’t pull out the online issue just because Briguela got herself into trouble. That’s sweet of them. Or smart.
Briguela is the co-host of Maja Salvador on the weekly TV5 gameshow, Emojination, which started airing in May. That show is produced for the network by APT Entertainment. Yes, APT as in Antonio P. Tuviera, who owns 25 percent of Television and Productions Exponent, or TAPE, the blocktime producer of Eat Bulaga for GMA-7. But ATP Entertainment is just the Tuvieras, not a partnership with the Jalosjos family that primarily owns TAPE. A son of APT, the film maker Mike Tuviera, directs the show.
A second season may have been taped in advanced to give Salvador enough rest time before she marries boyfriend Rambo Nunez sometime this month. She blared about their July wedding on her Instagram where she had pictures as “a blushing bride.”
Salvador and the Tuvieras seem to have not uttered a word about Briguela’s entanglement.
Naked girl
Brillantes, 19, the star of iWantTFC’s Drag You and Me, broke up with cager-actor Ricci Rivero, 25, because, as she claimed on an Instagram post, she caught him with a naked girl in his condo unit in which she (Brillantes) actress has a key for anytime entry.
In an interview with Boy Abunda’s Fast Talk on GMA-7, Rivero confided that the unnamed girl is the girlfriend of a friend both of whom stayed overnight at his (Rivero’s) place. A video of the girl coming out from the bathroom wrapped in a towel went around social media. The girl’s boyfriend, if he was ever in that unit, is not in the video which, Rivero told Abunda, was taken by Brillantes herself and implied that it was Brillantes who passed it on to others for posting.
Abunda casually asked Rivero if it’s true that he and Brillantes have been living-in in that condo unit, Rivero replied (ungrammatically): “Yes, there are times we do sleep together.” The young man later revealed that Brillantes’ mom wants her to go home to their house as often as she can.
That catching a naked woman in Rivero’s unit seems to have happened in March. Both have variously confided to some media people and bloggers that they agreed to cool off from the romance in April. By the first week of May, they broke up and unfollowed each other on Instagram. It was actually Andrea who first talked about that girl “na nakahubad sa kuwarto n’ya (Ricci).”
A few days ago, Brillantes replied to PEP.ph vlogger D’Jhaiho (a transwoman) a texted inquiry about Rivero’s assertion that the girl is not his but his friend’s.
Brillantes spilled it out to D’Jhaiho that Rivero had been leaving out many details about that girl during interviews with him as well as in his postings about that incident.
Brillantes must be very professional about her job as an actress. March and April must have been the time she did tapings for Drag You and Me (which has a big cast of seasoned actors — such as Romnick Sarmenta and Cris Villanueva — as well as some real drag performers and “konteseras”). There was no yarn about Brillantes turning in lifeless acting because of a broken heart.
The grand media conference for Drag You and Me happened around last week of May and Brillantes did not show any signs of being heartbroken or depressed. She was bubbly as ever in her drag outfit and hair-do (a bouffant wig).
As of this writing, Brillantes has not denied Rivero’s revelation that they were practically living together at his condo unit. Nor has any netizen bashed her for her sleep-overs at the cager’s bachelor’s pad. No one has threatened to withdraw their adulation for the former child actress. Owners and executives of the dozen-or-so products and services she endorses have not reminded her of any “morality clause” in her contracts with her.
As for Rivero, last heard of as a cager, he was with Blackwater Red President in the Third Conference of the halfcourt league’s second season in February this year. No ball court idol in the country has lost a contract for sleeping with his girlfriend and then breaking up with her for being caught in his bedroom with another woman.
If the guy is hurting at all, it’s for his parents’ being screamed at in a mall as having a son who is a “cheater.”
AWRA Briguela and Andrea Brillantes.
Noontime shows
Meanwhile, in another showbiz front — the TV noontime shows — Joey de Leon of the TVJ troika now based on TV5 seems to have been bruised by Vice Ganda’s chopper ride from the ABS-CBN studios on Sgt. Esguerra St., Quezon City, to the nearby (just about a kilometer) GMA-7 studios at the corner of Timog Avenue and Edsa, and landed on one of the building’s rooftop, then took an elevator ride to the ground floor so he could do a production number in front of the building.
TVj and the Dabarkads
That “gimmick” was meant to highlight ABS-CBN’s It’s Showtime which now airs on GTV, a franchised channel owned by GMA-7. It’s Showtime was bumped off from TV5 because the network gave the noontime slot to TVJ’s new show simply titled E.A.T. (take note of the periods, please).
On 2 July, De Leon posted on his Instagram a photo of E.A.T.’s hosts all squeezed in an elevator at TV5’s studios in Mandaluyong where the new show is held. De Leon’s caption: “Ganito kaliit lang ang studio namin sa TV5, parang elevator pero 1,000 floors naman ang taas ng ibinigay nyong pagpansin sa amin…lagpas helicopter! (winking face with tongue emoji).”