I am Jake

By Jake Zyrus

Charice Pempengco was poised to be the next big global pop star, the most powerful names in Hollywood staunchly behind her. But she bravely turned her back on the glittering lights of Hollywood for a bigger dream—to be himself in a world that tried its best to erase him from his own story. From his turbulent childhood to the dizzying heights of Hollywood, and the fall from grace to his rebirth, Jake Zyrus delves into it all and inspires with his story of becoming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9789712735028

Book preview

I am Jake

Text copyright © 2018 Jake Zyrus

with Cate de Leon and

Irish Christianne Dizon

Photographs © 2018 Javier P. Flores

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced

in any form or by any means without

the written approval from the copyright

owner and the publisher.

Published and exclusively distributed by

ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC.

7th Floor Quad Alpha Centrum

125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City

1550 Philippines

Phones: 477-4752, 477-4755 to 57

Fax: [phone]

[e-mail]

Website: www.anvilpublishing.com

eISBN 978-971-27-3502-8

Printed in the Philippines

Contents

Chapter 1: Awakening

Chapter 2: Mommy Dearest

Chapter 3: Kontesera

Chapter 4: The Making of Charice

Chapter 5: Daddy

Chapter 6: Music and Me

Chapter 7: Love is Love is Love

Chapter 8: Little Big Man

Salamat

Life After Life

Chapter 1: Awakening

When I woke up in the hospital, my first impulse was to look down at my chest. They were gone. My boobs were gone. I couldn’t believe it. My eyes filled with tears over the realization that beneath the bandages was a flat chest—the chest that I had always wanted. After years of living in a body that didn’t feel like mine, I felt a sense of ownership. I waited five years to have my breasts removed, and then there I finally was—groggy but fulfilled in the post-surgery. The moment was interrupted by the welcome appearance of my loved ones: my manager Carl, road manager Diana, partner Shyre, cousin Lestat, and friend Jayann. They were singing Happy Birthday as they approached, making me cry even more. The five of them had been waiting outside the room for six hours. March 29, 2017 was my new birthday, they declared, complete with the presentation of a small cake. The successful top body surgery signaled the birth of the real me—Jake Zyrus, the man who hid behind Charice Pempengco’s superstar-singer facade.

This was not the first time I woke up on a hospital bed. In the past, I had woken up from failed suicide attempts. I tried to kill myself thrice, gulping down fistfuls of sleeping pills I always had in abundance. Being Charice meant traveling across time zones to perform in arenas other singers could only dream about, so jetlag was a constant problem. Amidst the glamour and the dreamlike quality of my life, my mind would just go blank. Most days, all I wanted to do was lie down in my hotel room, turn off all the lights, and sleep forever. I know this seems ungrateful, taking for granted an opportunity a million girls would kill for. But that’s the thing: I’m not one of those girls. I’m not a girl. I’m a man, and pretending to be a woman every single day of my life in the public eye was slowly killing me. So I tried to speed up the process. On my third attempt at my life, I woke up and saw David Foster, the legendary musician who happens to be my producer and my godfather, by my bedside looking very worried. As a boss, David can be a perfectionist—he used to correct my English lapses, always out of love—but on that night, I saw his vulnerable side. I think he knew how serious the situation was.

I don’t want to live anymore. It was all I could say, through tears. David was distraught, but I could tell he wanted to put up a brave front for me. We would have a show that night but he told me to rest. Despite being at rock bottom, I chose to be strong. The tour was called David Foster and Friends and I didn’t want the audience to wonder why one of David’s friends was missing. The people pleaser in me insisted on pushing through. Even if I felt so weak, I got keyed up when David said I could wear whatever I wanted on stage—pants, sneakers, braids, anything! For the first time, I was going to perform as me. Well, as me as I could be at that point. Back then, I had not yet come out to David. But I could see that he noticed the immediate and profound effect of something as simple as dressing up the way I wanted to on me. I was very hyper onstage, engaging the crowd way more than usual. There are online videos of this particular performance at the 1,950-seat Esplanade Theatre in Singapore. Anyone watching it wouldn’t think that the girl they were seeing onscreen had tried to kill herself just hours before showtime. Yet, there was whispering about this. To quash the rumor, a press release was issued: I was rushed to the hospital due to food poisoning.

The day I woke up from my top body surgery was not like that time I woke up with David standing by my bedside. There were no feelings of frustration and dread. No Why am I still alive? questions to the God of Irony who trapped my male soul inside a woman’s body; the same God who gave me a voice that earned me a spot on the world stage, but made sure it was only at its most potent so long as I remained female. That day, at the crossroads of pain and euphoria, surrounded by the family I chose for myself, I realized it really wasn’t my time to go yet. I was very glad God had allowed me another go at life. I don’t have a religion, but I have my faith.

March 29, 2017 was also the fulfillment of a half-hearted promise I made six years ago. Back then, I told myself I would transition into a man by the time I turned twenty-five, a long-overdue gift for myself after years of struggling. But I didn’t force the process. Transition by twenty-five wasn’t a deadline I consciously tried to follow. But, in my post-surgery period, I realized I had fulfilled my dream when I said I would. Everything just happened at the right time.

Major change starts with questions and dissatisfaction. The years between making that promise and making it happen were marked by internal conflicts with my identity. It helped to have Carl around. She’s been my close friend and manager for four years now. She’s been around to help me figure out who I was. She was first a fan who came to my every concert and one day in 2016, I handpicked her to be my manager. Carl wears loose shirts, jeans, and sneakers; her hair short and slicked back. She’s butch, she has a girlfriend. She relates to people in a way that others would read as masculine. I used to wonder if she also identified herself as male in the same way that I did, and so I asked her. She didn’t, she told me. Carl is very comfortable with her female parts and considers herself a woman. She wards off awkward exchanges with others by telling people to call her Boss rather than Ma’am or Sir. In answering my questions, Carl made me realize we do not share the same gender despite being superficially similar. Gender identity is not as simple as girl, boy, bakla, or tomboy.

So naturally, on the day I finally decided to take the plunge and become a man, I knew I had to have Carl by my side.

I clearly remember the morning I decided to transition. I woke up and had a pure moment of clarity. Years’ worth of doubt and holding back dissipated, and in their place came a certainty that it was time to do what I wanted to do. I suddenly didn’t give a shit about what people would say. Carl and Diana had slept over the night before, which meant I could share that life-changing moment with my best friends as it happened. In my excitement, I sat next to their sleeping figures, staring intently at them, willing them to wake up. (Carl would later compare me to my two dogs that hover over their beloved human, eager to lick them awake.)

I have something to tell you, I began when they finally woke up. I’m ready to transition.

And because Carl is ever-reliable and supportive, her immediate answer to that was, Tara!

We lost no time. Carl inquired around Makati hospitals and asked about everything that had to do with the process, from the costs to the step-by-step procedure. To protect my identity, she pretended she was the one who wanted to transition but was always ready to stop nurses and doctors before they actually performed any tests on her. As soon as we had a clear picture of what I was getting into, we got to work.

Carl approached Dr. Manny Calayan, who offered to perform my top body surgery free of charge. In exchange, I would become one of the Manny & Pie Calayan Clinic brand ambassadors. I want to be part of your journey, your new journey, he told me.

Doc Manny is a person who seems like nothing could