WHAT WOULD BRUNO GIVE UP SONGS FOR?
Bernadette San Pedro Bayot died of a brain aneurysm in 2013. She was 55. She was also Bruno Mars’ mother.
In an interview with Latina magazine, Mars said he would trade his music to have his Filipina mother back.
“The woman who taught you to love, showed you what a woman is supposed to be… When that goes away, a little more than half your heart goes away with it,” Mars said.
Writer Jesus Trivino Alarcon noted that it was the only time Mars became serious—his voice even cracked—in an otherwise light interview where the multiawarded singer was always smiling.
“You just gotta know that she’s with me everywhere I go,” Mars continued. “It’s something that you can’t imagine—the pain and the things that you keep going back to: ‘I wish I would’ve done this or said this.’ You just have to see life differently. It shows you the real importance of life. Nothing else matters in this world but family and your loved ones.”
“My life has changed. She’s more than my music. If I could trade music to have her back,
If I could trade music to have her back, I would.
BRUNO MARS
I would. I always hear her say, ‘Keep going and keep doing it.’”
Bayot emigrated from the Philippines to Hawaii. There she met Pedrito Hernandez, who is half Puerto Rican and half Ashkenazi Jewish. Bayot, being from the Philippines, also had some Spanish blood in her.
Together, Bayot and Hernandez made six multiracial children.
“Growing up in Hawaii, there weren’t too many Puerto Ricans there. So because of my hair, they thought I was black and white,” Mars told Latina magazine.
By the time he wanted to do music professionally at 18, music executives had a hard time categorizing him—was he urban or Latin?
“There are a lot of people who have this mixed background that are in this gray zone. A lot of people think, ‘This is awesome. You’re in this gray zone, so you can pass for whatever the hell you want.’ But it’s not like that at all. It’s actually the exact opposite,” said Mars.
“What we’re trying to do is educate people to know what that feels like so they’ll never make someone feel like that ever again. Which is a hard thing to do. Because no one can see what we see and no one can grow up with what we grew up with. I hope people of color can look at me, and they know that everything they’re going through, I went through.”
The magazine went on to say that Mars, who is seldom associated with Filipinos, is prouder to be a Filipino than Manny Pacquiao—arguably the most popular Filipino in this generation.
Mars recently released the critically received album, 24k
Magic. The eponymous single topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart.