Actress Claudine Barretto explained what late actor Rico Yan meant to her after she called actor Mark Anthony Fernandez her “first love” in a birthday greeting post.
On Monday, January 19, the actress dedicated a birthday post to Mark Anthony, who celebrated his 47th birthday on January 18.
Claudine was affectionate in her post, saying she would still “choose” Mark Anthony as her “first love” if she were to live her life “all over again.”
“Belated happy birthday to my first love. My first everything. Especially my first heartbreak. I said this before and I say it again. If I were to live my life all over again, I’d still choose [you] to be my first,” she wrote in a social media post.
“I’m so proud of the man [you] have become. I never thought I’d ever be friends with my EX, but Mark definitely is the exception. A true gentleman with one of the kindest soul I have ever met. Happy birthday,” Claudine added.
“Thank you for never talking bad about me, in fact, [you] took all the blame and made sure I was always protected, even from a far. I have no regrets, only great memories. I [love you], ex,” the actress said with a heart emoji.
She accompanied her post with what appeared to be a screengrab from a video call with Mark Anthony.
Claudine also included the hashtag “#MarkDine,” a portmanteau of their names commonly used for love teams in showbiz.
In the comments section, a Facebook user noticed her “first love” tag for Mark Anthony and wrote, accompanied by a thinking-face emoji, “I thought Rico Yan was your first love.”
“Greatest love po,” Claudine responded in the replies thread.
In 2022, the actress also referred to the late actor as her “greatest love” when asked in an interview to describe her leading men throughout her showbiz career.
Meanwhile, she called Mark Anthony her “first love” when asked to describe him.
Claudine repeated her “Greatest love” description of Rico in 2024 when she told broadcast journalist Karen Davila, “Kasi, Karen, I realized, you know, uhm, in your life, sabi nila, you just have one great love, right?”
At the time, they were discussing the Claudine’s yearly visits to the late actor’s tomb, several years after Rico’s death.
“Parang ganyan. So, ako, feeling ko, ang once upon a time… once upon a time lang talaga,” the actress added.
Mark Anthony and Claudine were in a relationship during their teenage year, with Mark Anthony being 18 and Claudine 16 at the time.
They have said they never really had a closure, but remained friends after the relationship.
Meanwhile, Claudine met Rico when they worked together on the film “Radio Romance” in 1996. They eventually dated in real life in 1998 and their relationship lasted four years.
Rico passed away in March 2002 due to acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis that resulted in cardiac arrest.
