It’s just past 11 a.m. on a Tuesday afternoon and I’m riding shotgun in an Infiniti SUV in the suburbs just outside Austin, Texas. In the driver’s seat is Michelle Madrigal—former actress, current real estate agent. We just finished checking out a plot of land a Filipino businessman bought inside a gated subdivision. She’s been tasked to sell the houses soon to rise on the property.
The opportunity to chat with the ethereally gorgeous 34-year-old was too good to pass up, and so I volunteered to keep her company as our party—two other cars and five other people—motored to the next location: a quick stop at a wine shop that served vino grown right in the heartlands of Texas, before we headed to lunch.
“I love Austin because of what it has to offer,” she tells me. “The restaurants, the culture. It’s a very diverse city. There’s always something going on downtown. It doesn’t always have to be like a night out; even during the day there are live bands everywhere. It’s such a lively city.”
How Madrigal, who was an established name in showbusiness in the Philippines for many years, ended up selling houses in Austin has been written about in many other interviews, but I reckon this is the first time someone’s asking her about it in person right in her new home city.
From Manila to Austin
Madrigal came to Austin initially to enroll in a culinary course in 2016. Showbiz was a constant, and she had fallen into a comfortable routine of playing roles in movies and teleseryes. She liked acting—the actual craft of acting and not just the part where she’s famous and fawned over by adoring fans and sketchy men.
“Yes, I still miss it,” she says about her previous career. “I miss the acting part of it. Like the actual craft because it was really like my dream growing up. Hindi yung dahil, for some people, they want to be in it because gusto nila yung fame. For me, it was really just to portray different roles. Yung acting side talaga ng pag-aartista yung gusto ko.”
Madrigal got her start in the reality star search program Star Circle Quest on ABS-CBN in 2004. With her dusky good looks and willingness to play a variety of roles, she quickly made a name for herself in several film and TV projects, first in the Kapamilya Network and later with GMA. She even voices a preference for villain or kontrabida roles, even though she says it’s so far from her own personality as a typically quiet, timid girl.
“(People are) like, ‘why are you kontrabida?’ Mahiyain kasi ako. I don’t know. Siguro kasi, at the time, meron tayong stigma na, kapag lighter skin, or pag ganun yung hitsura, bida ‘yan. Tapos pag morena, kontrabida agad. Na-enjoy ko when I did Dyesebel. Kontrabida against Carla Abellana.”
When she first flew to the U.S., the plan was to study the industry in the hopes of opening her own restaurant concept back home. She also wanted to experience living abroad, absorbing a completely different food culture, and learn what she could so she could take it back with her in the Philippines. She was in the midst of the culinary course program when something unexpected happen. She got pregnant.
“That’s where I met my ex-husband and a year later, we were pregnant. That’s when I decided to live in America full time and to kind of move away from showbiz.”
The product of that union is daughter Anika. The plan to come back and perhaps open a restaurant business pivoted quickly and Madrigal quickly found herself getting married and becoming a full-time mom in Austin.
“I didn’t have any family here,” she says. “Up to this day wala akong family dito. I never hired a nanny to help around. Yung legwork or labor, ako yun. It was very eye-opening for me. Mahirap siya. Ask anyone na nakatira dito na galling sa PIlipinas na nasanay na we can get help anytime. Yung commitment of becoming a full-time mom is something else. And I never thought na kaya ko pala.
“But once I did it, it’s become part of my lifestyle,” she adds. “So for a time, I felt konting resentment, because I don’t get to do what I want anymore. Especially yung sa work. Artista ako dati; iba kasi yung puyat na sa taping, iba yung puyat na yung anak mo umiiyak every two hours. You’re breastfeeding. Sleep deprivation. All of that. But I’m happy I got to experience that here. If not, I don’t think I would be the mom I am today.”
As for her relationship with her ex-husband, Madrigal says they were married for nearly five years before they went their separate ways. She candidly admits that both of them gave it their all, but it just didn’t work out. She chalks it up to the “expedited” nature of their relationship.
“We didn't really get the chance to get to know each other,” she says. “Kasi, within a few months of dating, we were pregnant. Usually kapag bagong relationship, you have to nurture that. You have to date them and figure out kung same kayo not just sa culture but in things like values or the way you want to raise kids. Na-fast track lahat yun.”
The couple tried counseling, but in the end thought it best to file for divorce and spare their daughter from a “chaotic” household.
“May guilt din ng konti kasi, you’re thinking, I’m breaking up our family,” she says. “But at the end of the day, would you rather have your kids live in the same house? Buo nga kayo, pero chaotic naman. Toxic, away ng away. And you could hear kids say, ‘Sana nag-hiwalay na lang kayo.’ I think mas inisip ko kung ano yung better para sa anak ko. We decided to go our separate ways. And we’re happier.”
Today both she and her ex share custody of Anika, talking constantly and taking turns with their daughter.
From actress to realtor
The arrangement works well now, but when they first split up, Madrigal admits to bouts of panic and terror. How was she going to raise her child when she was, for the most part, financially dependent on her ex-husband? She had a few side gigs, mostly modeling and content creation on social media, but nothing that was consistent and sustainable. The reality of her being a single mom hit her and she knew she had to have a plan.
