GMA 7’s ‘queen’ Marian talks about rumored TV 5 merger

Marian and Dong on their recent tour of the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia. COURTESY OF DINGDONG DANTES

Marian Rivera, GMA 7’s top female star (she headlines the nightly “My Beloved” and the weekly “Tweets for My Sweet”), admitted that she had heard the rumor about the possible sale of her home network to TV 5’s Manny V. Pangilinan.

Was she worried that she might have to give up her throne as Kapuso queen if the merger pushed through? After all, there are more senior queens on the TV 5 lot.

“I don’t think about that,” she said. “First question I asked myself was: Does that mean I’ll be able to guest in TV 5 shows? A merger would allow the actors to do more things.”

Unfazed

Nothing fazes Rivera. Not even rumors that she is pregnant with boyfriend Dingdong Dantes’ child.

“Maybe the talk started because my character in ‘My Beloved’ is pregnant,” she noted.

She insisted yet again that she wasn’t married to Dantes.

“I have no plans of getting married just now. I have so many projects in the works,” she said, “and still so many dreams.”

One of those dreams is to visit exotic destinations around the world.

She and Dantes went to Angkor Wat in Cambodia last Holy Week.

“It’s a beautiful place,” she recalled. “We went on a cultural tour. We rode a tuk-tuk, and a tour guide explained to us everything that we saw.” She learned a lot about ancient civilizations on that trip, she said.

Recognized

She found that she and Dantes couldn’t travel incognito because their old GMA 7 shows were being aired in Cambodia and neighboring Malaysia.

“I didn’t expect to be recognized there. When we arrived, a Cambodian airport employee approached me and called me Macha,” she recounted. “I was the girl on TV daw, the girl with the fish tail. Turned out, ‘Dyesebel’ is titled ‘Macha the Ocean Princess’ in Cambodia.”

She couldn’t join Dantes on the promo tour for “Endless Love” in Kuala Lumpur last week because the launch of “Tweets for My Sweet” fell on the same day. “But I hope to visit Malaysia soon,” said Marian.

She gets nostalgic when she watches her old shows on Fox Filipino. “I’ve grown so much in the last five years,” she said.

Inquirer asked if she had seen Coco Martin’s old movies, since she would star with him next in a Regal film by Maryo J. de los Reyes.

“Not yet,” she said. “I know he’s a good actor, so it will be a challenge. That will push me to work harder. We were given a chance to work together despite being on competing shows—that’s a good sign for the industry.”