Bretman Rock—singer, songwriter, actor, actress, athlete, activist, a scientist on the mf-ing side, and now, (pretends to be shocked) the newest MTV reality star.
Are we even surprised? Bretman Rock, Da Baddest content creator, who does the least but looks the most, was always destined for superstardom. If you’ve been living under a rock, the Fil-Am digital darling rose to fame creating funny skits and memes on Vine before becoming the beauty guru that he is now. What sets him apart is his unfiltered, IDGAF attitude that built his following. In 2017, he was included in TIME Magazine as one of the “30 Most Influential Teens,” part of Forbes‘ “30 Under 30” in 2018, and Variety’s 2020 Power of Young Hollywood List. Oh, did we mention that he literally is the baddest?
Bretman is the newest lead in MTV’s Following web series where he shows everyone his life in Hawaii and his main crew, which most of us have already seen in his IG stories and TikToks. But now, we get to see a rare angle that’s unexplored in reality TV: someone who’s not white and wasn’t raised in a first world country. (Bretman and his sister Princess were born in Cagayan, Philippines then moved to Hawaii when he was 8)
In the pilot episode, he’s already shown pride in the language (you’ll hear some Ilokano lines from Mama Mercy), in the food (Bretman cooked Filipino spaghetti and Igado with Miss Kay), brushes up on the culture, and talks about the struggles of moving to a completely different country to find a better state of living. Towards the end, Bretman invites Princess and her daughter Cleo, his two childhood friends, and his mom for dinner to try the dishes he cooked and things surprisingly get a little too emotional.
Mama Mercy shares, “I wake up 3 o’clock in the morning. When I wake, they’re still sleeping. When I come back here, they’re [already] sleeping. I am alone taking care of them.” Not gonna lie, that got us all in our feelings remembering how most Filipino parents sacrifice and suffer to give their children the best life, and it’s refreshing to see this type of representation that’s out of the ordinary—especially in mainstream media. That’s just the first of more episodes to come, and we’re getting blessed by another one tomorrow on MTV’s Youtube channel. You can watch the 25-minute pilot ep below:
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