Liza Soberano has chosen to speak. Not in the carefully scripted cadence of press junkets, but in a raw, unfiltered voice that cracked open the gloss of her public image.

On Sarah Bahbah’s Can I Come In? podcast, Liza revealed a childhood marked not by fairy-tale beginnings, but by chaos and neglect. A mother struggling with addiction, a father entangled in legal woes, and foster care years filled with humiliation—including one harrowing account where she said she was forced to clean up dog feces with her tongue.

It was a confession designed to unsettle. And it did.

People squirmed at the details. Yet, as the words traveled from the podcast to social media timelines, the nation seemed split—not on the issue of child abuse, but on whether Liza was being “authentic” or “opportunistic.” The cruel irony is that in a country where child neglect remains a silent epidemic, it takes a celebrity’s trauma to make us look. But even then, we looked away.

Instead, much of the noise revolved around something else: her confirmation that she and Enrique Gil had broken up—back in October 2022, no less. That revelation, almost casually dropped in the middle of her testimony, became the headline. The hashtags, the memes, the discussions —these were about the end of a love team, not the scars of a child forced to grow up in dysfunction.

Why? Because in Philippine showbiz, romance sells more than reality. Love teams, whether real or constructed, are cultural currency. The Liza-Enrique pairing (LizQuen) was not just a relationship, it was a product, a dream, a collective illusion that many refused to let go of. For some, the collapse of that illusion was more devastating than any childhood wound she chose to share.

But here lies the tragedy: her most disturbing truth—that abuse and neglect can happen even to a girl destined for stardom—was sidelined. It’s a reflection of what we value: spectacle over substance, gossip over reckoning.

What does this mean for her career? Well, it depends on who you ask.

Cynics will say it’s a gamble, that Liza risks alienating fans who prefer their idols unblemished, scandal-free, perpetually smiling. But there’s another way to see it: that Liza, by speaking this way, has reclaimed her narrative. In an industry that often dictates how women should look, act, and even love, she broke the script. And in doing so, she has sparked the one thing every celebrity craves—not blind adoration, but relevance.

Whether this is a win remains to be seen. What’s clear is that people are talking. About her pain, about her choices, about her love life. In the crowded din of showbiz, cutting through is, in itself, very much a victory.

The question is whether we, as an audience, will choose to listen to what truly matters—or just to what entertains.