Trigger warning: depictions of sexual abuse
In 2018, Jake Zyrus launched his autobiography I Am Jake. In it he recounted the trials and tribulations he went through as then global sensation and singing prodigy Charice Pempengco.
The book went deep into the events of his turbulent childhood. Such accounts involved the harrowing and detailed revelation about the sexual abuse he suffered from his uncle. Netizens recently caught wind of Jake’s traumatic experience seven years since the book’s release, and it’s currently going viral online.
LOOK: Jake Zyrus’s experience with sexual abuse goes viral on social media
On March 2, 2025, the Facebook page Pageant Talk shared excerpts from the book; specifically the pages that contained Jake’s heartbreaking truth. According to the excerpt, Jake was only six years old when his uncle began molesting him.
“My uncle then asked me to come with him to his room. We were going to sleep, he told me. Even if I had said no, I was so small and helpless. All he had to do was pick me up. Of course we didn’t sleep. He lay behind me, spooned me, and started touching me all over. My uncle, supposedly my second father, asked me to touch his genitals. I refused to move and didn’t talk. I just lay there stiffly waiting for the nightmare to be over.”
What Jake thought was a one-time thing turned into a recurrent nightmare. His uncle continued to abuse him for a whole year whenever his mother was away. In some instances, he claimed that his other relatives were just around the vicinity while his uncle forcibly kissed him before threatening his life should Jake tell anyone about what he was doing.
Jake told his mother about what happened fifteen years later. But his then caretaker, with whom he now has a fraught relationship with, did not believe him. “She told me I had a lot of nerve to be making up stories about the old man.”
As of writing the post has over 5k shares and 10k reactions. It has elicited an outpouring of long-overdue support for Jake and what he went through, with some netizens even sharing their own experiences with abuse and others chastising his mom for dismissing his confession.
I Am Jake was published under Pride Press, the LGBT-centric imprint of Anvil Publishing. Senator Risa Hontiveros, Chairperson of the Committee on Women, Children, and Family Relations, calls the book touching, vivid, and heartfelt. She wrote for its back cover blurb, “Here, for the first time, is a deeply personal account of Jake Zyrus’s ordeals with abuse, poverty, and gender discrimination. But more than a tale of struggle, it is ultimately one person’s inspiring, continuing journey to solve the greatest mystery of life—the question of who we truly are.”
Jake is currently based in the United States. He recently captivated fans with a video of him covering Chappell Roan's viral hit "Good Luck, Babe!".
I Am Jake is available online on Anvil Publishing’s official stores on Lazada and Shopee, and in select National Book Store branches.
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