While most teenagers stand out from the crowd by being loud, or worse, obnoxious, 17-year old James Reid chooses to keep it real.
Though raised in a different culture, James was able to capture the hearts of audiences with his charm. Overwhelmed by the number of supporters, James can’t even pinpoint the exact reason for the admiration except that he has no pretention. “I’m really down to earth. My dad told me when I got home that I was pretty natural. I was just being myself. I don’t know, maybe they like my accent?” James smiles.
House to house
Despite growing up without his Filipina mother, James still kept in touch with his Asian roots by visiting the country almost every year. It was in 2009 when the Aussie-Pinoy finally settled in the Philippines with his dad. After struggling with money problems back in Sydney, the father and son decided to move to the country and start anew.
“In Australia, we had a court case and we lost our house. We are living off government allowance because we didn’t have any money. My oldest brother helped us move here,” relates James, who admits he was overindulged as a kid. But when his family faced legal troubles, he began to feel the major changes in their lifestyle.
James enrolled at the Makati Science High School but transferred to a distance-education school a month later in order to avail of the Australian government allowance. But the restrictions of home-schooling bored him. Being confined inside the house impeded his interactions with other adolescents his age. And James found a chance to meet new friends inside the PBB house.
Read the full story on mb.com.ph
