We all know Ellen Adarna as someone who is never afraid to walk away from emotional baggage. Through the years, she built a reputation for being brutally honest about relationships. This 'Aries' woman and ‘BisDak’ beauty is fiercely independent and tough enough to guard her heart no matter how deep the feelings get.
Maybe part of that strength comes from her star sign. But a bigger part of that actually came from her father, who brought her back to her senses with an important love advice when she first got heartbroken over a guy in high school.
"No man is worth your tears. You're not easy to get, Ellen," her dad told her. So, Ellen, a teenage rebel then, wiped the tears and moved on carrying that lesson with her, believing she had to be careful and intentional about the men she would let into her life.
Besides, growing up a 'lola's girl,' Ellen witnessed firsthand what love looks like when a woman is deeply cherished. She saw it with how her grandpa honored her grandma. Well, he literally built an empire for her. Fun fact: the “Leah” behind Cebu’s famous Temple of Leah is actually her paternal grandmother, Leah Villa Albino-Adarna. Her lolo built the structure after her lola passed away as a tribute to his love. How do you even match that kind of devotion?
When she got older, Ellen heard another hard-hitting reminder about matters of the heart straight from her dad. "Ay nag pagminyo, pag-anak na lang," which translates to, “Don’t get married. Just have a kid.” She lived by that mindset for years. Ellen kept one foot out the door and refused to fully surrender herself to a man. But one day, she got down bad for love that she eventually wanted marriage herself, throwing her dad's "rule" out the window.
“I thought about it. But what could I do... I was in love,” she related in an episode of the Bisaya talk show "Kuan on One" hosted by Melai Cantiveros. She never imagined herself getting married but as they say, the heart wants what it wants.
"In love lang ako that time. [I thought], why not?" mused Ellen as she jestingly blamed romantic films for feeding her delusions, only to realize that reality doesn't work like a rom-com. "You start to think married life is like [in the movies], but it's not." She now understands why her dad hated cheesy flicks and would keep telling her that 'kilig' scenes are scripted for a reason.
Besides the pieces of love advice, she also shared memories of her father’s strict parenting style before he passed away in 2018. Ellen disclosed that she was such a rebel during her youth that her dad would often "punish" her by cutting off her allowance. Because she needed the money to sustain her “party girl” lifestyle, she was forced to earn her own through modeling gigs and she even experienced an HR job at a call center company.
People often wondered why one of Cebu’s richest heiresses was working outside their family business in the first place. They had no idea Ellen was just that “pasaway” that she was constantly grounded. At one point, her dad even banned her from using the family car, so she had to ride jeepneys for months, although she was still accompanied by a nanny.
But she never despised her dad. If anything, Ellen acknowledges that his tough-love parenting style taught her to become self-sufficient at an early age. Eventually, she received an offer to enter showbiz, which she fell in love with despite having no initial plans of joining the industry. At first, her dad thought she was only wasting her time, but he later on became impressed after seeing how much she was able to achieve and earn for herself through her work.
Showbiz was an entirely different world from the life she grew up with in Cebu. While she was used to being the pampered girl back home, the fast-paced “artista” life, where surviving on almost zero sleep was the norm, became a huge adjustment for her. Surprisingly, she loved every minute of the experience, especially when she was busy with back-to-back projects in ABS-CBN like "Pasion de Amor," "The Greatest Love," and "Langit Lupa."
Eventually, Ellen decided to step away from acting and move back to Cebu after giving birth to Elias, her first child with actor John Lloyd Cruz, in 2018. These days, she is a hands-on mom to both Elias and Lili, her one-year-old daughter with Derek Ramsay.
Laugh out loud and hear inspiring stories from Bisaya personalities in new episodes of “Kuan On One” Season 5 every Tuesday, 8 am, on the ABS-CBN Entertainment YouTube channel, and on iWant.
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Throwback: Arci Munoz, Ellen Adarna and Coleen Garcia as “Pasion de Amor’s” Elizondo sisters (2015)
Throwback: Maja, Melai and Sam in "Impostor" (2010)
Throwback Melai Cantiveros and Jason Francisco as Josa and Adonis in “Kokey @ Ako” (2010)