Karylle recounts healing process

ZSAZSA’S little girl is all grown up and tackling life — and success.

Good-naturedly, Karylle tackled incessant questions on the recent annulment of the marriage of her parents, singer Zsazsa Padilla and dentist Modesto Tatlonghari.

She looked like she had come to terms with the situation, as she talked to the press during her recent launch as Fruitas endorser, and as star of the pan-Asian TV show “The Kitchen Musical.”

In an earlier interview with the Inquirer, Zsazsa recalled that she had postponed filing the annulment case until after Karylle’s graduation from college. “Karylle asked me to wait awhile. She worried about how her classmates would react.”

A decade later, Karylle confessed, “That was selfish of me. Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have asked that of my mom.”

Taboo subject

It was probably because separation was a “taboo” subject among Filipinos, she explained. “We don’t usually talk openly about these issues. It’s hard to explain to teenagers.”

The turning point came at the sickbed of the late record label boss Bella Tan. While visiting Tan, Karylle recounted, she met counselors from the Bethesda Springs of Hope and Center for Family Ministries, who helped her process personal issues.

Still, Karylle admitted, “My healing journey took years and years.” And she realized she could help other young people from broken homes “by simply sharing my story.”

She explained: “Many of our ideas about relationships and separations come from TV soap operas … lots of drama and hysterics. That’s sad, because it’s just a matter of communicating, sitting down and calmly discussing the problems. If you cannot express something properly, you won’t be able to address it properly, either.”

More open

She can see now that all her experiences, including her very public breakup from actor Dingdong Dantes, have helped her grow as a person. “It’s not that I’m less trusting, but I feel stronger,” she said. “I’ve become more open to outside help as well.”

Plus, obviously, she’s become fiercely protective of her private life, declining to give details on the state of her rumored relationship with rock musician Yael Yuzon. Which has led to some confusion of late.

“People thought I was getting married or was pregnant, maybe because I had turned down a number of projects,” Karylle said. “That was just because I need to stay in Singapore for four months for ‘The Kitchen Musical.’”

Oh, and she doesn’t think being cooped up in Singapore for four months would lead to romance with co-star Christian Bautista. “That’s the farthest thing from our minds, the both of us,” Karylle stressed. “The challenge of stepping onto the international stage is too huge. We can’t get distracted.”