When teenage singing sensation Charice met Whitney Houston at a listening party for the superstar’s album, I Look To You, last year, the 18-year-old couldn’t believe that a legend like Houston even knew who she was.
“Whitney was like, ‘Hello, Charice! I know you!’” the Filipino-born singer tells Tonic. Houston told Charice that she had seen a DVD of her singing some of the superstar’s greatest hits, including “I Have Nothing” and “I Will Always Love You.”
“She said to me, ‘You sang those songs so effortlessly!’” says Charice, who admits she was more than a little nervous meeting one of her idols. “I was shaking,” she says. “It was an amazing moment.”
Just as amazing as when the petite, 5’1″ teenager begins to sing, blowing away audiences all over the world with a powerful voice that has been compared to Houston and Celine Dion.
Tuesday, just one day after her 18th birthday, Charice made her fourth appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, along with Justin Bieber, for the US debut of her new, self-titled album and to perform her hit single, “Pyramid,” featuring Iyaz, which nabbed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Dance/Club Play chart, overtaking Rihanna‘s “Rude Boy.”
“This is my first pop R&B album ever,” says Charice. “I love all the songs on the album. I usually sing songs by Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. But the songs on this album are original. I’m really proud of it. It’s all been a dream come true.”
A YouTube Cinderella Story
In the past four years since Charice’s career has taken off, the talented teen has caught the attention of Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey and shared the stage with superstars including Celine Dion, who gave her “motherly” advice in her dressing room when they were performing together at Madison Square Garden. She’s performed for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and with Andrea Boccelli in Tuscany.
But life was far from glamorous for Charice when she was a child. Her parents split up when she was three years old, because of domestic violence. On the September 9, 2008 episode of Oprah, Charice told the audience how at three years old, she watched her father choke her mother and threaten her with a gun. Neighbors heard her mother’s screams and stopped him. “We left my dad and after that, I never saw him and I don’t want to see him,” Charice told Oprah. “I’m just singing now for my mom. I couldn’t help her before, that’s why I want to help her now.”
Her mother, Raquel Relucio, worked sixteen-hour days, six days a week at a garment factory to support Charice, whose full name is Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco, and her younger brother, Carl. From an early age, Relucio, who is a singer herself, knew her daughter had an exceptional voice. “My mom discovered my voice when I was four years old,” Charice said on Oprah. “She thought, ‘that’s the radio’s playing, you know, Celine Dion is singing.’ She went to the living room and she saw me singing and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Charice is singing!’
Charice used that exceptional voice to help support her mother and brother by singing in amateur contests in the Philippines. Life changed dramatically for her when she started performing on the Filipino talent show Little Big Star (a version of American Idol) and the popular South Korean talent show Star King, and a fan began posting those performances on YouTube, making her an internet superstar. (She now has more than 13 million YouTube followers.)
DeGeneres saw one of those performances on YouTube and invited Charice to perform on her show, where she sang “I Will Always Love You,” catching the eye of one of the most powerful women in television: Oprah.
Oprah’s Protégé
Charice says she has a special place in her heart for Winfrey, who helped launch the singer’s career on her show. In 2008, Winfrey invited Charice to appear on an episode of her show called “World’s Smartest Kids,” where she brought down the house with a powerful rendition of Houston’s “I Have Nothing.” “You are a force to be reckoned with,” Oprah told her. “That voice comes from something bigger than yourself.”
Oprah, who has called Charice “the most talented girl in the world,” says on her website: “One of the things I love most about Charice is that no matter what obstacles she’s faced in her life, she’s never given up on her dream of something better,” Oprah says.
Oprah introduced Charice to one of the music industry’s most influential forces, Grammy Award-winning producer David Foster, who signed her to his 143/Reprise label and invited her to perform on his “David Foster and Friends PBS Show” in Las Vegas with Michael Bublé, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban. At the show in Las Vegas, Bublé joked to Charice, “I’m so glad that I don’t have to follow you. Because that would suck for me very badly. Because no matter how good I am, I know that you’d kick my butt.”
Giving Back
Charice remembers how much her family struggled when she was growing up in the Philippines, so when World Vision contacted her and asked her to sponsor a 7-year-old girl named Nicka, she said yes immediately.
“When they sent me Nicka’s story, I cried,” says Charice. “I wanted to help her to go to school. I wanted to help her because I was there once, too. I remember how hard things were when I was little. I was poor. I remember having to move to another house without anything. Even though she is so little, she wants to go to school so badly. She is really smart and loves school. She is an amazing girl.”
Not only does Charice pay for Nicka to go to school, “I give clothes and shoes to her and her family. I help them with living expenses. She’s always sending me letters and her grades to show me how well she is doing in school. I love that. She’s like my little sister.”
Two years ago, she met Nicka at a photo shoot for World Vision. “She didn’t know I was the one who was helping her until I met her. When she met me, she started to cry and said, ‘You are my idol! You are my favorite singer! I can’t believe you are in front of me right now and that you have been the one helping me!’ It was so emotional. I felt so happy to be able to help her. I wish I could help even more kids. If I could send all the kids to school who wanted to go but couldn’t, I would do it.”
Operation Smile Youth Ambassador
Last year, Charice got the chance to help even more kids when Operation Smile asked her to become one of its youth ambassadors. “They told me that Operation Smile started in the Philippines, so of course, I wanted to do it. I love helping kids and helping people so I said yes. I want to help all the kids that I can.”
“I am honored to help Operation Smile and the work they do in helping children around the world,” Charice says on the Operation Smile website. To have a chance to change the quality of even one child’s life and ensure a better future could not be more important.”
Photo by George Holz, photo courtesy of World Vision.
