“I felt like I was strong enough and in a position in my life where—although it’s still a work in progress —I’m coming from a place of healing, and I feel empowered and informed enough to talk about it openly and hopefully share some ways that other people can address what they’re going through and feel supported.”
In this exclusive interview with Esquire Philippines, advocate for mental health and HIV/AIDS awareness, social media superstar, Ted Talk speaker, and now published author, Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey is a lot of things, but she’s always been someone whose dreams are bigger than her problems.
In this exclusive interview with Esquire Philippines, advocate for mental health and HIV/AIDS awareness, social media superstar, Ted Talk speaker, and now published author, Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey is a lot of things, but she’s always been someone whose dreams are bigger than her problems.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 If somebody says, "Oh no, you can't."
00:02 I'm like, "No, no, no, there's always a way."
00:05 Yung tigas ng ulo ko nasa lugar.
00:10 I wanted to make sure that I was comfortable
00:27 and that it was coming from a good place.
00:29 At some point in my life, I wanted to open up about
00:33 the mental health struggles that I went through.
00:36 When I was given the chance to do the TEDx
00:38 and come up with my own topic,
00:40 I thought that this is my opportunity to kind of
00:44 own the narrative of what I went through
00:48 instead of it coming from somebody else,
00:50 another person talking about what they witnessed.
00:54 And I felt like I was strong enough
00:56 and I was in a position in my life where
01:01 I am coming from a place of healing.
01:04 I'm coming from a place where I feel
01:07 empowered enough and informed enough
01:10 to talk about it openly.
01:12 I immediately thought, "Okay, I feel good about it."
01:15 As I was writing that draft, I had to go back
01:20 and kind of relive some of the moments again.
01:22 And so that part I found a little challenging
01:26 because it's like rehashing all these old wounds.
01:30 But I feel really good about that talk
01:32 and I'm glad that I'm able to share it with everybody.
01:35 I became the breadwinner of my family at a young age
01:44 because my parents got separated when I was nine.
01:48 I was discovered in a mall
01:50 and when I did my very first photo shoot,
01:52 it was a paid gig.
01:55 Of course, I was so young, so my mom was the one
01:57 handling the finances of everything.
02:00 It really helped the family.
02:02 And that's when I realized that,
02:04 "Oh, I have a real opportunity here to help my family out."
02:10 So it became a thing.
02:12 It was challenging.
02:13 I mean, I did feel a lot of pressure to perform
02:16 because you needed to keep booking jobs and gigs
02:22 to be able to keep sustaining the family.
02:25 It helped me mature.
02:26 It helped me find the value or realize the value
02:30 of hard work, of perseverance, patience, and money.
02:34 Like, I don't just throw away money like that.
02:37 I have a better appreciation of saving and investing now.
02:41 So I try to be smart about it now.
02:50 Now in my adult life,
02:52 I try to find purpose in the things that I'm doing.
02:55 I've been at it for a few years now.
02:58 It's been eight years since Miss Universe,
03:00 and it's nice to be able to do these, you know,
03:02 like these shoots and you get glammed up
03:05 and you're on stage or you're in front of an audience
03:08 and you do meet and greets.
03:09 All of this part, the glam part, is really nice.
03:13 I also crave for the real interactions
03:17 and real stories from real people
03:19 and just kind of real life experiences.
03:22 Because you could like very easily get caught up
03:25 in this life, you know, not everybody in your circle
03:29 or your friends group understands showbiz.
03:31 You just, you can get caught up in the industry.
03:34 So I try to find like a balance.
03:39 And I find that through the advocacy work that I'm doing.
03:43 You come to a point in your life
03:45 where you wanna find purpose in what you do.
03:49 And it's such a great, it's my break from all of this.
03:53 If I just lend my time and my platform and my voice
03:58 to the things that I care about,
04:00 and I know I'm making small changes as I'm doing that,
04:04 that is priceless.
04:05 That is good enough for me.
04:07 My mom was very supportive when I was young.
04:16 And she, you know, she was there for me
04:18 in all of the work stuff I was doing.
04:21 But I grew up kind of feeling alone, you know?
04:24 And I think where I get my grit, my perseverance from
04:29 is from that loneliness.
04:32 I use fear, doubt as my fuel to keep going.
04:37 I was always stubborn.
04:38 So I never took no for an answer.
04:40 If somebody says, "Oh no, you can't."
04:43 I'm like, "No, no, no, there's always a way."
04:46 I'm always stubborn.
04:50 Aside from mental health,
04:55 I'm also still with doing HIV and AIDS awareness.
05:00 I work with UNAIDS,
05:03 and I also work with Love Yourself here in the Philippines.
05:06 And we are working, constantly working
05:09 on different projects.
05:11 At the moment, I have an advocacy show
05:14 called Holding Space.
05:15 And I post this on my socials, on Instagram and YouTube.
05:19 And I go around the Philippines,
05:22 around the malls or wherever I am.
05:25 And I pull people and ask them questions
05:27 about social issues.
05:29 I'm very proud of that show.
05:30 We're on our third season.
05:32 And yeah, so aside from mental health,
05:35 I am also still very active in HIV and AIDS awareness.
05:44 So I have a team helping me take the pictures
05:46 and the videos, but most of the concept
05:48 and what I wanna share online are really my ideas.
05:52 So for example, today, I'll share my advocacies.
05:56 I'll share the glam stuff also,
05:58 like the makeup looks and the fashion.
06:01 But then I'll also share about my personal life,
06:03 the things that I find interesting now,
06:06 the things that I'm into.
06:07 I'll share about my relationship with my family,
06:12 with my husband.
06:13 And I see social media as like a diary.
06:17 It's like, here's our snippets of my life.
06:20 Here's what I'm doing now.
06:21 Here are the things that I'm interested in.
06:23 And I like to mix it up.
06:25 You know, I don't wanna stick to just one thing.
06:28 So I just share, share, share.
06:30 And the thing is, people are smart nowadays.
06:33 They know when you're trying to force something
06:37 and they can tell whether it's really authentic
06:40 to you or not.
06:41 The more natural, the better, I feel.
06:44 And, but you know, it's been hard though,
06:49 because there's so many social media apps now.
06:52 So you have to have a different strategy for TikTok,
06:54 a different one for YouTube,
06:56 a different one for Instagram,
06:57 Threads, Twitter,
07:00 Facebook.
07:03 That's six apps already.
07:05 Am I missing any more?
07:07 Oh my gosh, I'm trying to keep up.
07:09 But that's the world we're living in now.
07:13 That's the new TV.
07:14 (upbeat music)
07:17 (upbeat music)
07:20 (upbeat music)