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For fifteen years, Hope Elizabeth “Liza” Soberano has been the girl-next-door, the face every brand wanted to capture in a smile—MEGA included, countless times. On screen, she’s been a nerdy transfer student, a blogger, a tribal heroine. Her gentle, almost angelic energy captivated millions; one would think she was raised in love, light, and hope. After all, aren’t we all, as they way, a product of our environment?
But pain is patient. It waits. It follows. It meets us in school, in our first heartbreak, in the relationships we swore would last forever.
For Liza, pain arrived early—long before she could understand what it even meant.
RELATED: Liza Soberano Makes Way For Hope in the Showbiz Industry
Content Warning: This article contains mentions of abuse and substance use.
Can I Come In?
In the multi-episode series Can I Come In?, photographer Sarah Bahbah captures Liza like we’ve never seen her.
She emerges in a bathtub, somber, unadorned, and still. For nearly an hour, she answers Sarah’s questions and opens up about her childhood: her loved ones suffering from drug use, the constant shuffle between foster homes, and the physical, emotional, and mental abuse no one knew of. She cries, and you feel the weight of every broken moment.
Then Liza speaks of love—her first. She opens up about the grief and guilt of losing a nearly decade-long relationship, one that she confirmed quietly ended three years ago. There’s no need to transcribe what was shared (there’s the episode for that), but what’s impossible to miss is this: everything that broke her shaped the woman she is today.
Will You Meet Hope?
Watching her, it’s impossible not to feel the weight of it all.
It’s almost unfathomable that someone so radiant—a name that carries weight, a face adored by millions—was once a child forced to live in a minivan. Called the “family dog” by a foster mom who promised love but gave none. One night, Liza’s shelter was a cardboard box; the next, the cold, empty garage. The ones who should have been her refuge instead built her exile.
Some weeped with Liza (plenty, judging by the YouTube comments). But for most, the water in the bathtub also became a mirror.
Did you see yourself in it? The woman working three jobs to make ends meet. The cancer survivor who must rebuild. The grown-up who still seeks everyone else’s approval. The woman who mapped out her life to the T, only to never reach it. It doesn’t make sense in the thick of it, but it’s always much clearer in hindsight: it’s what breaks you that makes you.
Because Liza grew. She’s worth her salt. She’s become a respected force in show business, earning box office awards, a FAMAS, and global recognition, all the way to Hollywood. She rose from poverty on her own. And beyond her career feats, she learned to alchemize her pain into power, revealing herself so fully in an episode like this that she becomes a mirror for every woman daring enough to face her own struggles.
So yes, you will cry and ache. But you, too, will face it, name it, and meet yourself in the process. In that reckoning, you’ll find that all that’s left is Hope. Will you meet her like Liza has?
Photos: CAN I COME IN? and MEGA ARCHIVES
