Ricky Lo: The ultimate storyteller of stars
(Note: Originally published on Sept. 12, 2020, this rare interview is republished with permission from the website Checkin.ph in honor of our late entertainment editor, Sir Ricky Lo.)
For decades, Ricky Lo has given millions a front-row seat to the glitter and gloom of the entertainment world, delivering the hottest talks of the town — from the controversial celebrity break-ups and dramatic unions to the biggest scandals and juiciest gossips that rattle the nation.
While most of his contemporaries have already thrown in the towel, the veteran entertainment editor and columnist continues to shock and awe with his scoops, forging his name as a showbiz icon and the ultimate storyteller of the stars.
A lookback at his many exclusives, one would readily agree that if it comes out in his daily column, then it must be true. And attempts to uncover his reliable sources would prove futile because he protects them without fail.
Just recently, he broke the news that long-time sweethearts Sarah Geronimo and Matteo Guidicelli were exchanging “I dos” in a quiet ceremony on Feb. 20. While people close to the two actors scrambled to disprove his report, the very private wedding indeed happened, to the disdain of Geronimo’s mother, who was uninvited to the most important day of her daughter.
When James Reid and Nadine Lustre called it quits in January after a two-year relationship, Lo delivered the story piping hot, sending legions of fans of the JaDine love team into a frenzy. He also didn’t disappoint his loyal readers when he revealed in a flash that Anne Curtis and husband Erwan Heussaff, who were in Australia, became first-time parents to a baby girl in March.
Perhaps, his most notable exclusives were that of the heartbreaking split of Martin Nievera and Pops Fernandez in 1995, and that of Ruffa Gutierrez and her Turkish husband, Yilmaz Bektas in 2007, and of course, the controversial romantic affairs of Kris Aquino with several celebrities — from Phillip Salvador, Joey Marquez that grabbed front-page headline and cager James Yap.
Aga Muhlach and Charlene Gonzales’ anticipated wedding in the City of Pines back in 2001 — the first in showbiz in the new millennium — also did not escape Lo’s radar.
While he often goes out of his way to get his much-awaited showbiz news and scoops, Lo is inevitably sought out by celebrities themselves to let him in on their biggest, darkest secrets and give him exclusives.
Lo has gone a long, long way, and far from what many thought he would be: a priest.
In his childhood in Las Navas in Northern Samar, where he was born and raised, Lo was one of the six altar boys who devotedly served in the daily Latin Mass officiated by the town’s chaplain, the late Fr. Fernando Tan.
The six altar boys were expected to enter the seminary in Calbayog City after graduating from grade school but “unfortunately or fortunately, there was divine intervention,” Lo tells checkin.ph.
Barely two months before he was to finish grade school, Fr. Tan, who had a great influence on him, drowned following a motorboat accident. Lo figured that he was not meant to spread the Good News from the pulpit but from someplace else. “(It was) goodbye priesthood!” Lo says.
“I knew I love writing even as a kid because I was fascinated with my Classic Illustrated comic books collection,” he shares, adding that seeing how his Chinese father, Vincent Lo would always sit in a rocking chair and pore over his favorite Chinese pocketbooks he kept in a box beside him, also sparked his interest in writing.
“I think it was my father who unwittingly inspired me,” he says.
But first, he had to struggle with his Math subjects and fail them for one semester taking up Chemical Engineering at the Mapua Institute of Technology (now Mapua University) in Manila before he finally took the path to become a writer.
After his first six months in college, he dropped out of his engineering course and switched to AB English at the University of the East, where he was granted a partial scholarship.
His first job fresh out of the university was at a movie magazine, where he worked as an editor for press releases. “They had no budget for a newbie (but) okay na rin na training for me,” he says. Lo would then move to Stardust, a magazine based in Malabon, where the salary, he recalls, was “nothing to brag about.” He didn’t mind because his employers were so gracious to have his crooked front teeth fixed for free. “I love my front teeth kaya hindi ako
pumayag,” he adds. But the climb up the ladder to become one of the country’s elite showbiz writers that he is now was not easy. He describes his early journey as “going through the eye of a needle.” While he was a movie fan at heart, he didn’t know anyone back then from the entertainment industry, he says.
He remembers joining the fan club of Marvin Molina, a Premiere Production starlet and attending a club meeting in Tondo just to score an interview with him. His “heavily edited”
story was then published on Weekly
Nation magazine, thanks to its kind and very supportive entertainment editor, Danny Villanueva.
“(He also) started giving me other assignments. That included an interview with comedienne Chichay, who had many pet cats after she won in the CAT Awards for television, the forerunner of today’s TV awards,” says Lo.
With hard work and perseverance, Lo eventually got into the inner showbiz circle and made himself a credible entertainment writer and eventually a sought-after columnist. Through the years, he rubbed elbows not just with local celebrities but with Hollywood A-listers, too.
Before the pandemic, the showbiz columnist had a very hectic schedule, shuttling between Manila and the United States every other month to attend movie premieres and advanced screenings, press conferences and interviews with international stars.
Lo has become a familiar face in the Hollywood crowd to the point that some celebrities have become comfortable enough to call him by his first name.
While he had no time to do sight-seeing in his many trips to the US, he was always happy to return home with memorable takeaways: the Hollywood stars’ dazzling and warm smiles and experiencing firsthand their likability and infectious charisma. “Among the Hollywood stars, ang
dami ko ring favorites, lalo na ‘yung ilang beses ko nang na-interview at feeling ko mga kumpare at kumare ko na sila. Some of them call me, simply Ricky. ‘See you back, Ricky!’ O, di ba?” he says.
He has interviewed more than 200 of them but his favorites include Will Smith, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Antonio Banderas, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Salma Hayek, Madonna and Celine Dion.
Despite meeting a pantheon of international personalities, he still has a lot on his must-interview list: Director Steven Spielberg, Prince Harry and Princess Meghan and the feisty New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Kate Ardern, to name a few.
After decades of documenting the lives and careers of showbiz stars, Lo has never lost appetite for the daily grind — interviewing celebrities in between writing columns and closing the pages. When asked about the most fulfilling thing in what he does for the showbiz world, he replies with a laugh: “It gives me orgasm without asking for anybody’s help. Travel light, travel alone. What is your imagination for?”