Recognized as the country’s reigning queen of endorsers and box-office queen, respectively, both actresses were cited for their huge influence and wide following on social media.
By Alex Y. Vergara
Actresses Marian Rivera-Dantes and Kathryn Bernardo recently made it to Forbes Asia’s “100 Digital Stars” list, capping off an eventful year that saw them being recognized earlier as PeopleAsia’s “Women of Style and Substance 2020” and “People of the Year 2020,” respectively. Both stars, in separate issues, also made it on the magazine’s cover.
In a report by The Philippine STAR’s Iris Gonzales, Forbes hailed Dantes, 36, as the “Philippines’ most popular celebrity on Facebook,” with 23 million followers.
“While not appearing on screen since the birth of her second child in 2019, she has been busy on social media, endorsing brands that include Nestlé Nido, Philippine National Bank and appliance maker Tough Mama,” Forbes said.
She and actor-husband Dingdong Dantes are the proud parents of Zia and Sixto. At the height of the lockdown earlier this year, the actress would wake up at dawn almost every day personally preparing 400 to 500 food packs to be sent to some of Metro Manila’s healthcare workers out in the frontline.
Journalist Büm Tenorio Jr., in a cover story for PeopleAsia’s August-September 2020 issue, writes: “If devotion to the welfare of others could make one a saint, Marian would glow with a halo right here, right now. But she’s all too human. Waking up early in the morning as a volunteer feeder for Andrew’s Fund Ph, a charity organization devoted to helping the needy, springs from her kind-hearted nature. It would have been so much easier to hire and consign the feeding job to a caterer, but Marian knew it would be a different experience doing it herself.”
Bernardo, who rose to fame as the other half of the “Kathniel” love team with fellow ABS-CBN talent Daniel Padilla, was cited by Forbes for her string of record-breaking box office hits: 2018’s The Hows of Us with Padilla and 2019’s Hello, Love, Goodbye, which paired her for the first time with Kapuso talent Alden Richards. Both films grossed roughly $20 million.
Although Bernardo became popular as a young adult, the actress started her show biz career at a very young age. In a cover story, which appeared in PeopleAsia’s December 2019-January 2020 issue, Hermes Tunac writes: “Kathryn became an actress when she was seven. At such a young age, she spent her childhood shooting on a set while kids her age were probably in school or in the playground. Sixteen years later, Kathryn blossomed into an actress with a discipline that made her name stay on top, with or without a leading man.”
Forbes Asia’s 100 Digital Stars list features 100 singers, bands, film and TV stars with a strong social media presence in the region. Dantes and Bernardo earned the honor alongside the widely popular South Korean boyband BTS and Chinese actress-singer Yang Mi.
According to Gonzales’ report, Forbes touted BTS as one of the world’s most successful musical groups ever, with over 33 million Instagram followers. Yang Mi, a household name in China, has a string of lucrative endorsement deals, which include Crocs, Esteé Lauder, Stuart Weitzman and Victoria’s Secret.
Joining Dantes and Bernardo in Forbes’ list of 2020’s hottest digital stars are fellow Filipino celebrities Angel Locsin, Kim Chiu, Anne Curtis, Vice Ganda and Sarah Geronimo.
