Actor and box office king Alden Richards reflects on success, the holidays, and single blessedness
Related: The First MEGA Ent Cover Star Love Confession
Nobody wants to be alone. Especially not at Christmastime.
But Alden Richards, the reigning King of Philippine Box Office, the Star with “Pambansang Bae” (National Boyfriend) as a euphemism is very used to it by now.
“I love being alone,” Alden smiles.
“Parang mas masaya akong mag-isa. I really can’t say this for everyone but for me, talagang mas masaya mag-isa,” he adds happily about his “aloneness.”
Nobody really knows much about Alden’s love life. Not that it’s a deeply guarded secret. But because it’s virtually non-existent. He’s never had a girlfriend in 10 years, his 10 years in show business. In fact, the last time he was really in love was when he was still in school and in a relationship with his first girlfriend of six months.
“Siguro first love parang may certain joy when you see this person na hindi mo maipaliwanag kung saan nanggagaling. Parang you don’t need anything. ‘Di mo kailangan ng materyal, hindi mo kailangan ng kahit na ano, siya lang. Okay na siya, nandyan lang siya. Nakikita mo lang siya. Parang ‘yun talaga yung feeling na, ah mahal mo ‘to,” Alden remembers the feeling of his first love.
And while the past 10 Christmases found him single and blessed, he admits that he enjoyed three romance-filled Christmases before he joined the biz.
“Nagiging extra special yung holiday when you’re with this person, your better half, kasi syempre iba yung alaga ng nanay, iba yung alaga ng pamilya. Pero iba yung alaga ng taong ikaw lang yung mahal, aside from family, aside kay Lord, aside sa friends. Iba yung may ganung knowledge ka ng tao na may ganun sa tabi mo,” Alden says the difference between celebrating Christmas with a loved one and spending Christmas single.
Alden’s longest relationship lasted for a whole school year, but they had to break up when his mother died.
His mother’s death changed the way he looked at romantic love and seeing his father lose his wife affected him. Seeing how broken his father was, he stepped up as the family’s breadwinner.
“Doon nag-start yung pagiging selfless ko eh. Ako na lang muna, tabi na muna yung gusto ko mangyari sa buhay ko kasi sila muna. I had to make a lot of sacrifices for the family kasi nga syempre yung kuya ko was studying incollege and then my sister has to go to school. Tinabi ko yun, tinabi ko yung pag-aaral ko, tinabi ko yung dreams ko for myself para sa kanila. Nadala ko yun eh when I was young and after my mom died. Yun yung naging effect niya sakin,” Alden confesses.
More than putting his dreams on hold to start working, Alden also put love on hold.
“Hindi ko makakalimutan yung sinabi niya sa akin na ‘Jay namatay na rin yung kalahati ko,’” Alden says of what losing his mother meant to his father.
He entered pageants and took modeling jobs to earn and help with his family’s finances. He auditioned for both ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Big Brother and GMA’s Starstruck, but he failed to make the final cut in both reality star search competitions. He was losing heart.
Then one day, when he was a college freshman at De La Salle Canlubang, Alden got a call from GMA to audition for a daytime soap opera. Conflicted, he weighed the pros and cons of cutting class and failing a subject and spending the last of his saved earnings on a bus ride to Manila for a go-see with no guarantee of getting a call back.
“After Starstruck kasi nawalan na ako ng gana to do auditions kasi mas madaming failure, tapos sayang yung pera kasi inuutang lang namin yung perang pang punta ng Manila. Talagang wala ng natitira so that day, ewan ko, siguro si Lord sabi niya, ‘Sige isang shot pa, isang shot ka pa para malay mo naman,” Alden held on to his last hope.
He decided to ditch school and, on borrowed money, bought a bus ticket to Manila.
When he didn’t get a call back the following day, Alden regretted being absent and failing his class to go on an audition. On the second day with still no call back, he was pretty much resigned to the fact that showbiz did not want him.
But then, on the third day, the network finally called him to offer him the part of the male lead in the afternoon teleserye Alakdana. Alden’s life started to turn around. Show business finally swung a door open for him.
Alden Richards became one half of the “love team” with then leading lady Louise de los Reyes called “DenLou”. Alden and Louise’s DenLou was lesser known compared to the other love teams in GMA and other ABS-CBN-made love teams like KathNiel (Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla) and LizQuen (Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil) who were their contemporaries.
In their time as a love team, Alden admits to developing feelings for Louise and Louise liking him back. Though they had established a mutual understanding, they never really became “official.” After four years as a love team, Alden and Louise went their separate ways. Alden was, officially, alone again.
His network decided to “repackage” him and make him a formidable leading man who would go up opposite GMA’s biggest stars. The plan was to pair him with Marian Rivera. And he was when he starred opposite her on the primetime drama Carmela.
But one television guesting would change every plan the network had for him, would effectively change the course of his career trajectory and ultimately, change his entire destiny.
The one television guesting on the longest-running noontime variety show Eat Bulaga made him almost an overnight superstar. And it was nothing planned, just something, or someone that accidentally happened to him—MAINE MENDOZA.
A simple split screen of the two of them meeting on live television sparked the start of what would be known as the country’s most phenomenal love team in television history.
“Kinilig ako,” Alden admits on his first “screen to screen” meeting with Maine Mendoza. “Kami both. It was a beautiful accident,” Alden describes the initial thrill.
That first encounter led to Alden becoming a regular on Eat Bulaga and starring in the viral, worldwide trending Kalyeserye with Maine Mendoza. They were dubbed “AlDub” for Alden and Yaya Dub, the character Maine Mendoza played.
Kalyeserye featuring AlDub was a phenomenal hit that gave Eat Bulaga new record-breaking ratings in decades, prompting then ABS-CBN’s rival noontime variety show It’s Showtime to make their own segment called Pastillas Girl which felt staged and unsuccessful in comparison.
Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza were catapulted to worldwide fame and overnight superstardom.
Suddenly, Alden was no longer alone.
“May moments kami ni Maine before kapag kaming dalawa lang magkausap na ‘Grabe yung nangyari satin no? Parang hindi pinlano, hindi pinilit pero everything fell into place,’” Alden recalls of finally reaching his dream with the help of his love team, Maine Mendoza.
Kalyeserye, with the premise of Alden and Yaya Dub falling in love with each other daily even if they haven’t physically met lasted for a good two years and aired about 400 high-rating and consistently number one trending episodes.
After two years, show creators and the network decided that it was time for the two onscreen lovers to finally meet in person. And, with the whole world watching.
Asked what he felt when Kalyeserye needed to end, Alden said “Siguro ang haba na rin. Ang haba na ng nilalakbay namin and also, syempre yung manonood din may sense of inip na din siguro—that’s how we felt about that. So, Eat Bulaga thought of something na, ‘Paano ba natin ‘to gagawing big for people who supported us?’, ‘Paano tayo makakatulong?’, and, at the same time, ‘Paano natin ‘to ma-de-deliver in a grand way?’ So that’s what happened sa Philippine Arena that day.”
It was a national event that unfolded before of thousands of people in attendance and broadcasted live from the Philippine Arena, to millions of homes in the country and many abroad. Alden and Yaya Dub, and, Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza’s first physical meeting sent shockwaves into the entire business of show and cemented them as two of the biggest stars in the country.
When asked how much of his success he owes to Maine, Alden says 50%. The other 50%, he attributes to his tenacity and hard work. But he admits that because of Maine, superstardom came so much sooner than he expected. She hastened it for him.
But just like all love teams that reach its peak, AlDub rested comfortably in the stature they were elevated unto. It soon became just a recent memory.
“Nagta-try na kami to do our solo things together. So it’s still there pero wala pang plans for the next project,” Alden says of his professional standing with Maine.
“Si Maine kasi buhos din siya sa lahat, sa pangaral sa sarili, saka ano siya parang ‘Gawin na natin ‘to ngayon kasi bukas baka hindi na,’” Alden describes of how Maine is similar to him, afraid of losing everything that they have been given.
In many ways, Alden never really pursued a romantic relationship with her because he was afraid he would lose everything the way his father lost everything when he lost his mom.
Alden admits that he did like Maine and the (romantic) feeling was mutual.
“It’s just nagkaroon lang ng difference sa priorities, so ako talaga all out talaga sa work kasi sabi ko parang ang tagal kong hinintay na magkaroon ng ganitong blessing. Ayoko siyang sayangin agad,” he gives as the reason for not courting Maine.
“Kasi andami ko nakikita na ganun eh. Andaming kwento na parang affected yung work, since pag love team kayo and then you eventually end up together. Damay work. Hindi nagiging productive lalo na kapag magkaaway and ako kasi parang workaholic kasi ako eh. Now on my 10th year, in the past 5-6 years ago, 24/7 talaga,” Alden adds.
Maine Mendoza eventually found happiness with real-life boyfriend, actor Arjo Atayde.
Alden, once again, found himself…alone.
But it was always in his aloneness that the biggest blessings came into his life. This time around, with the country’s reigning Box-Office Queen and ABS-CBN top-tier royalty, Kathryn Bernardo.
“Mas maganda si Kath in person,” Alden admits upon meeting the star for the first time.
Of course when you put two halves of the biggest love teams from the two biggest rival networks together, and with both couples with the most fiercely loyal fandoms, someone like Alden was very careful in approaching someone like Kathryn.
“Parang yun yung pinagpasalamat ko kay Kath, na hindi niya pinaramdan sakin na hindi okay ‘tong ginagawa namin. Naka-support din naman si Daniel during that time so thankful din kami sa kanya,” Alden assuredly securing Kathryn’s love team and real life boyfriend Daniel Padilla’s support and permission.
Alden and Kathryn starred in last year’s Hello, Love, Goodbye, what would be, and still is, the highest-grossing Filipino movie in history earning P880 Million worldwide, elevating Alden Richards and Kathryn Bernardo into Box-Office King and Queen of Philippine Movie status, dislodging even real-life couple Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla’s previously undisputed box-office record for The Hows of Us from first to second place.
Alden was not alone in this success but he achieved it with someone else’s official love team and somebody else’s girlfriend.
And yet he was so very happy.
“Parang yung feeling ko when Aldub happened,” Alden describes the feeling of starring in the most successful Filipino movie of all time. It was a repetition of his original success with Maine. But this time, with Kathryn.
He proved that even without Maine by his side, he is capable of reaching higher heights that he could have ever dreamed or imagined. And he has proved to be one of the biggest male stars in the two networks that previously turned him down 10 years ago.
Today, Alden is at the top of his game, realizing dream after dream by himself.
And that is probably why he is very comfortable being alone.
But there’s a big difference about being alone and being lonely.
“I’d like to believe na yung success is not achieved by you, yourself alone. You have people, yung mga nag-angat sayo. Ako kasi yung success ko is being shared so it’s never lonely at the top,” Alden shares of his status.
But of course, now that he has everything and more that what he thought he needed, he agrees that finding love in his stature and at this stage in his life is something that he wants.
“I’ve been searching. Siguro two years na.”
“Syempre gusto ko Pinay. I really fall for girls with long hair tapos not too thin, ayoko ng sobrang sexy. Kumakain ng burger. Ayoko yung kumakain ng salad,” Alden readily enumerates traits of what he is looking for in a girl.
“By 30, I want to get married na,” setting a permanent romantic deadline for himself.
Alden is now 28 years old, 10 years single and only has two years to find a wife if he wants to be married at 30 and no longer be alone.
For Christmas, Alden’s plan is to travel alone, something he has never done before. He wants to go to Paris, London and Iceland by himself.
After spending 10 consecutive Christmases single, he welcomes the idea of being in love on Christmas.
“Sana soon,” Alden hopes.
