Sharon Cuneta. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–Actress Sharon Cuneta reached out to her fans on social media and revealed that she had gone through a midlife crisis.
“I have nothing to lose by telling you that I have made mistakes that have affected all that I have worked for, bled for over the past 36 years,” Cuneta said in an emotional Facebook post.
“I feel that I have let you down. I let myself go, I allowed myself to get fat and stay fat. I became complacent… and I never lost faith in God, and in you, but I ignored the fact that I had lost faith in myself. It was I who let myself become affected by the fact that I had turned 40, not my public,” she said.
Cuneta admitted that she had become complacent to the point she has lost control of her weight and is going through “one of the lowest times” of her life and career.
“In ‘The Biggest Loser,’ I even said that I used to be everyone’s sweetheart, and then I turned 40, and I felt it all changed. I knew then but chose to deny to myself that it wasn’t that I had turned 40,” she said.
“It was that I had allowed myself to become fat. I feel that I had lost that ‘hunger’ to be on top of my industry, maybe because I finally had a peaceful home and a loving family and focused on my children so much,” said Cuneta, who starred in 53 films, 10 television shows, and recorded 40 albums.
“And so I suffered the consequences of failing to treasure and take care of all that God had blessed me with with regard to my career. It is my fault, my friends. I am only human.”
Cuneta described her reaction to her crisis as awful. “I became rebellious because I hated myself for the way I looked and the time I continued to waste by not focusing and working on bettering my own person… I hit mid-life and didn’t know how to deal with it. I was lost. And then when I got used to it, I saw what had changed around me.”
She said she was working “like a robot” but she felt that her “gifts” were being used to the fullest potential.
Cuneta also admitted that she has a temper and is expecting bashers to mock her Facebook post. Early this year, she quit Twitter following arguments with netizens who insulted her family.
“Yes I have a temper — and I have said that in so many interviews over the years. But it takes something unbelievably mean to provoke me to be mean myself. Often, when someone hurts you, you want to hurt them back,” Cuneta said.
She said that some of her responses on Twitter were not very “Christian-like” and said she would “do anything short of murder someone who is full of malice and such disrespect” when she would be treated or her family to something they do not deserve.”
” I cannot apologize for the person I am. I am transparent…Twitter was one of the few places that provoked me to show that side of me, but make no mistake about it — I am a fighter. I am not a doormat. And like every other human being, I deserve respect, especially because I know I am not a bad person. My mistake was I should’ve picked my battles like I always used to. I was shocked and unprepared, and so I was wrong to react the way I often did,” she said.
She thanked her fans who supported her in her high and lows.
“Thank you. Very, very much. You have stuck with me through thick and thin. You didn’t give up on me even when I gave up on myself (yes, I did) sometimes. You didn’t know it, but you helped me crawl out of my little hole several times in the past and get back on my feet. I know that God has done most of that for me — I want you to know that so did you,” Cuneta said.
“I don’t say this lightly, but I love you. For loving me even if you don’t know me as a normal human being and not the girl on TV and in movie reruns. I love you for knowing that I am not perfect, and loving me anyway. I love you because you give me a reason to go on doing what I love to do — singing, acting, hosting… I love you because you make me feel needed and still worth something in this fickle world,” she wrote.
The actress, dubbed as the Megastar of the Philippine entertainment industry, said she plans to start anew by “going back to basics.”
Cuneta is married to Presidential Assistant for food security and agricultural modernization Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan and has four children.
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