Brent Manalo: The Big Winner Who’s Just Getting Started

When we last spoke to Brent Manalo, he was the picture of unbothered charisma, lounging in a leather jacket, tawny jeans, and a black cap, the streets around him in varying degrees of beautiful chaos. He had called himself shy, almost apologetically, before explaining his survival mechanism: the switch. “Anytime, as long as I’m in front of the camera, I can be anyone you want me to be.”

READ MORE: Behind the Quiet Cool of Brent Manalo

It is a line that feels rehearsed until you watch him mean it. Over the past few years, the “anyone” he has been is a dizzying list: actor, model, content creator with a 2.5 million-strong following, collaborator with luxury fashion houses, and now Pinoy Big Brother’s most recent Big Winner. The trajectory is all the more striking when you consider his own admission that he grew up painfully shy, using fashion as a sort of armor to meet the world on his own terms.