Dra. Vicki Belo and Hayden Kho are thrust into the spotlight once more as the March issue of YES! magazine features an in-depth look at their recent breakup.
By now, everyone knows the role of Katrina Halili in this split—the other woman who posed nude with Hayden on a billboard for Belo, the one who was even his partner in the talent show Celebrity Duets. Could it be, however, that their union was an answered prayer of sorts for Hayden?
Katrina tells YES!, “May history siya na parang may sinusulat siyang something… na hindi ko maintindihan. Sinulat niya ako sa… ewan ko! Parang kunwari wish list niya, something na kasama ako do’n.”
Hayden sheds some light on this as he tells YES! in a separate interview, “If you want something, I have to believe first that I am God, and I can make it happen. Lahat ng intentions ko, lahat ng ni-list down ko na gusto ko, I didn’t even have to work for it. I just wrote it down. I just said it once. Everything happened, you can check my list.”
Perhaps being the boyfriend of Vicki Belo was part of this list. Not long after meeting Vicki at a competition they both judged, a romance bloomed between them and Hayden joined the Belo Medical Group immediately after passing his board exams. Hayden’s peers in the medical profession were not too keen about the relationship.
Enrique Tan, Hayden’s frat brother and friend of 10 years, tells YES!: “Maraming nag-counsel against it in terms of his career. Bakit hindi ka nag-residency? Bakit hindi ka nag-specialize? What happens after Belo?” As one of the few who supported their relationship, Tan says, “The fact is, some [fraternity brothers] are well-off, but they don’t look very attractive. They look for trophy wives.”
Vicki may have seemed to be a prize catch to some, but she was much more than that to Hayden. He loved her enough to go along with her plans for his showbiz career instead of taking a diplomate exam that would have been a big boost to his medical career. Showbiz proved to be too much for Hayden to handle, and the price of his fame would be the love of his life.
Hayden tells YES!, “For a while, I thought I had the world in my hands… Parang I’m living a good life… So, akala ko okay na ‘to… Mali, e. Nakalimutan ko si Vicks. Sa sobrang dami ng nangyayari sa buhay ko, I didn’t have time to just pause and look back, and ask the question, ‘What for?’ And who’s important to me. I forgot Vicki, honestly. Napabayaan ko… I took her for granted.”
Vicki, for her part, was aware that he was taking her for granted, but had difficulty letting go of the relationship. Vicki reveals to YES! that she has separation anxiety issues that stem from being an adopted child, a fact that many are not aware of. Vicki says, “I have issues na kapag iniiwan ako ng tao, talagang nagpa-panic ako. [And] I’m the kind of person kasi, I don’t shut people out of my life. I think that’s part of the abandonment issue, na ayoko na wala talagang communication, na parang, ‘How can somebody be a big part of your life, then suddenly he’s out?’”
Vicki and Hayden are currently undergoing separate therapy sessions and have been advised by psychiatrists not to have any form of communication for six months.
The 19-page feature in the March issue of YES! has testimonials from Hayden’s peers from the medical world, tell-all interviews with Katrina and Hayden, the unaired Startalk interview of Vicki, and more. Read all about it in this month’s YES!, available in newsstands, bookstores, and supermarkets nationwide.