PRECIOUS Lara Quigaman shared that she was once a victim of an abusive boyfriend for three years.
Lara, who was crowned Miss International 2005, said this period also opened doors for her in show business — but it was also one of the darkest phases of her life.
“It was everything I thought I wanted,” Lara said in an interview with Karen Davila on April 1, 2026.
“So it became abusive physically, emotionally, so talagang ang hirap… I felt so trapped. So feeling ko talaga there was no way for me to escape and feeling ko hindi na ako kayang patawarin ni Lord, because of everything that’s going on in my life,” she said.
“I felt like super lost… no hope… And I felt that the only way that I could escape the relationship was if mamatay yung guy,” she added.
“Kapag nandun ka na pala sa isang relationship na abusive, even though you wanna get out, you feel like you cannot because you feel like nobody else will love you anymore.”
Her mother later arrived from Canada after learning about her situation. Lara said she still does not know who informed her mother, who then spoke with her boyfriend and his family and told them to leave her alone.
“Akala natin tayo ang may kasalanan… But no, there’s always hope, there’s always a way out and God always uses people to bring you out of that,” she said.
Lara said this is why she considers her husband, Marco Alcaraz, an “answered prayer.” The couple, now based in Canada, got married in 2011 and have three children. / TRC