Charice Pempengco’s incredible journey from poverty to international stardom

September 5, 2009 by vongsundara · 16 Comments 

UPDATES
September 5, 2009: Fixed YouTube embeds and links.
April 23, 2009: Added props to COOLSMURF for posting the Star King performance on YouTube. (Thanks to Concernedfan for leaving the correction in a comment.)

I’m still relatively new to the whole Charice Pempengco phenomenon. I’ve been following Charice’s best live performances and listening for any news about her upcoming 2009 studio album produced by David Foster. Since there’s a little lull in Charice news, I figured it would be a good time for me to find out about her past. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Charice’s Oprah debut that went through her entire history, so hopefully I can patch together information from the internet.

Charice was born on May 10, 1992, in San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines. According to various television interviews, Charice and her brother Carl were raised solely by their mother, Raquel. Charice’s father has been out of her life since Raquel left him and took the kids when Charice was still only three years old to escape a domestically violent situation. Charice has been singing since she was four years old and was taught to sing by her mother. Charice began entering singing contests when she was seven to help bring in money to support her struggling family.

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