Ah, politics, always divisive, always messy.

For celebrities, getting involved in politics can come with a price, especially when their choices do not sit well with the public. Toni Gonzaga learned that firsthand in 2022 when she openly endorsed political candidates and found herself at the center of intense backlash.

The experience was awfully painful, she admitted.

But it came with lessons, too.

Gonzaga says it also taught her something about herself and about other people: what it feels like to be judged.

In a recent conversation with Gary Valenciano on his "Unshaken" podcast, Gonzaga looked back on that difficult period and how it changed her.

She was privately pregnant at the time and dealing with a wave of criticism that became difficult to escape. She said she even received death wishes and reached a point where she thought the online noise might never disappear.

But with time, Gonzaga realized that the biggest change would have to come from within her.

“What changed for me was my mindset. Everything changed internally,” she said.

It also changed how she viewed the people judging her.

Instead of allowing the experience to make her resentful, Gonzaga said being constantly criticized gave her a better understanding of what it means to be on the receiving end of judgment.

“It made me kinder and less judgmental because I know what it is like to be judged every day,” she said.

The experience also brought out a more vulnerable side of her.

“It made me compassionate. Naging vulnerable ako. It molded me into a new person who is completely different from who I was before,” she added.

She admitted that she once expected the experience to have the opposite effect.

“I thought I was going to be bitter, mean to people,” she said.

Instead, she found herself becoming “kinder,” “softer,” and “more understanding.”

That change came during a period when Gonzaga was also questioning what the backlash meant for her career.

After 20 years in show business, she said there was a point when she wondered if everything was coming to an end.

She had already made peace with the possibility that her career might have reached its final chapter. But eventually, she realized that one difficult period did not necessarily mean the end of the road.

Support from people around her also helped her get through it.

Gonzaga recalled receiving love from her family, strangers and people she admired, even while she was dealing with heavy criticism from others.

That contrast gave her another perspective.

Public opinion, she realized, could make someone feel completely isolated, but it did not necessarily reflect the whole truth of what was happening in a person's life.

But that does not erase what happened in 2022.

Gonzaga made her political choices, stood by them, and paid a heavy price when those choices triggered a massive backlash. Now she says the experience taught her to be kinder, less judgmental and more compassionate because she finally understood what it feels like to be judged herself.

But did she also learn something from the political choices that started it all?

Or did she simply learn how to live with the backlash?

That, we don't know yet.

If politics comes knocking again, her next move may tell us whether the lesson went deeper than learning how to deal with the noise.