Barbie prioritizes health & family
The coronavirus pandemic has taught Barbie Imperial to put priority on her health and family rather than her other concerns in life.
The actress, who is busy doing a lot of acting projects lately, said it was tough to be separated from her family during the height of the pandemic.
“The most challenging really is to be away from your family. It was only during the lockdown when I realized that because what was important to me before was my work,” said Barbie who admitted to be the primary breadwinner in the family. “That’s why it is important to me to have work. Otherwise, I won’t be able to provide for my family. And because of this pandemic, I’ve learned to pay attention to myself, you know, to be safe and healthy as well as my family in this time of uncertainty.”
What bothers her is the fact that until now, she wasn’t able to connect with some members of her family living in Bicol and were affected by Supertyphoon Rolly. She said that she has yet to hear from her relatives in Albay and Catanduanes, two of the hardest hit provinces.
“It’s been three days (from the time of this interview). We still have no news from them. The whole Virac was really devastated and the supertyphoon left many people (affected), so that was the challenge for me, to be away from family.”
In regards to her career, Barbie is thankful that she continues to have acting projects for online platforms. Currently streaming on IWant TFC is the BL series titled Oh, Mando that Barbie is starring in with Kokoy de Santos and Alex Diaz.
In Oh, Mando, directed by Eduardo Roy Jr., Barbie portrays the beautiful and liberated Krisha who easily gets the attention of Mando (Kokoy) when they meet in a school play. They fall in love with each other and eventually enter into a relationship. Krisha is clueless that Mando is struggling to suppress his attraction to boys but not until he meets the handsome Barry (Alex).
Barbie admitted that it would be hard for her to accept the situation of her character in real life. “I will definitely get mad because it’s hard to accept that my boyfriend is in love with his bestfriend. Of course, I will definitely feel so hurt but I know myself to be so loving and forgiving and accepting of a situation the Lord puts me into. I know that if that happens in real life, it means that that person is not for me. Lagi naman siyang nangyayari, actually I do not know who is truly the one for me kasi daan sila ng daan sa buhay ko, hahahaha.”
But it doesn’t mean that she frowns on same-sex relationships. In fact, Barbie is vocal about her being supportive to the LGBTQ community.
“It doesn’t matter to me whatever your gender preference is — if you are straight or whatever — because I have so many friends na LGBTQ and to be honest, I have more guy and gay friends than girls. As long as you know how to show respect to me, you are kind to me, you are a good person, and most especially kung alam ko ang kwento ng isang tao, alam ko kung ano ‘yung pain n’ya, mamahalin ko talaga s’ya.”
Barbie added that she, too, can relate to being misunderstood by other people because of how she looks or acts.
“Bakla rin talaga akong babae,” she described herself and continued, “Oftentimes, people see me as a snob and I think because I am mestiza, akala nila Ingliserang babae. Pero ‘pag nakausap na nila ko, kasi s’yempre yung buhay ko before, hindi ako mayaman. We were living near the railroad tracks before so it’s like squatter’s (area) at ‘yung kilos ko talaga bargas. I grew up like that so I know how to deal with all kinds of people.”
She, too, stressed that her mother taught her to treat people equally and to never allow others to look down on her.
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