Hello reader

When a huge showbiz scandal comes our way (ostensibly, through the digital grapevine), I always feel a mix of excitement (breaking news! what’s happening this time!) and trepidation.

Celebrity kalat, as juicy and amusing as it can be for outsiders, is still ultimately an actual person’s own source of trauma and pain. 

It’s especially jarring when the buzz is about a celebrity who you feel a special connection to (oo, may connection ako kay Ate Sarah bakit ba).



Whether or not you’re a popster, it’s pretty hard to miss Sarah Geronimo’s secret wedding to actor Matteo Guidicelli and the scandal that followed after. 

Here’s the gist: Sarah and Matteo, who’ve been together since 2014, finally pushed through with years-old plans of tying the knot. The wedding was a huge secret (Ricky Lo leaked it in a column, but that’s another story) and it pushed through sans incident – until after the dinner party at a posh hotel in Taguig City. 

Divine, Sarah’s notoriously strict mother, apparently crashed the post-wedding party. Hurtful words were thrown around. A scuffle ensued. A police blotter was filed.

AshMatt (a portmanteau of their names – Sarah’s second name is Asher) fans basked in the second-hand glory of their love. Some relationships, it seems, will take time to heal. 

While not everyone’s love life is as storied as that of Matteo and Sarah’s, most (if not all) love stories can just be as interesting – even the unsuccessful ones. 

I’m turning 29 this year, which means many of my contemporaries are getting married, getting engaged, expecting their first child, or happily sharing snaps of their little ones on social media. And then there are the couples who are slowly – and painfully – realizing that it’s time to let go. 

I’d like to think your mid- to late-20s are a tumultuous time but maybe that’s just me being dramatic while I’m going through the motions.

Just today, in a Telegram group chat, a friend made a random realization: now that she’s in her late 20s, she’s done waiting forever and, in her own (slightly tweaked) words, she can only handle being tanga (dumb) for a finite number of days. I responded by saying that being dumb over love is only truly cute until you're 22. It becomes a real source of concern as the years progress.

Maybe that’s why we all gravitate towards the sometimes messy lives of celebrities whose music and art inspire us, but whose personal lives ultimately elude us.

Their mishaps and victories are proof that maybe our fuckups aren’t too bad and maybe, just maybe, one day we’ll find the “best days of our life” too.

Living for the kalat (hopefully not my own), 

Bea