Bela Padilla shared on how difficult it was to adjust to a new setting far from home when she moved to the UK. Before moving back to the Philippines permanently in 2025, the actress spent a few years living in the UK beginning in 2021.
She revealed that moving abroad forced her to relearn even the most fundamental daily rituals in an interview with Luis Manzano for his YouTube vlog.
“[It was] very different in a sense na… pati paglalakad I had to relearn kasi di ba we are walking on a different side of the road. Even just crossing the street, kailangan mo mag-isip pagtawid, ay dito pala ako dapat tumingin, dito nanggagaling ang kotse na dito [sa Pilipinas], you don’t have to think about it. Kahit tunog lang ng kotse alam mo, ay may parating, hindi ako tatawid… Even basic stuff like that, so I felt like a child, like I needed to relearn everything,” she shared.
Bela said that although many had cautioned her about seasonal depression or the “winter blues,” she had not experienced its consequences.
“Everybody warned me, ‘You’re gonna get depressed especially on your first winter. It’s a thing, seasonal depression, winter blues,’ so I prepared myself for it…. Winter came and went, wala, walang nangyari,” she said.
The actress exclaimed, “Sabi ko it’s because I’m Filipino. I’m resilient. Sabi ng lahat ng gobyerno namin, I’m resilient.”
But later on, the emotional cost became apparent. “I think the sadness kicked in nung year 2 or year 3 kasi na-realize ko na it’s so quiet, it was so quiet,” Bela said.
She said: “It started getting really quiet for me and I’m someone who enjoys silence. I’m someone who is very comfortable being alone but it was too quiet. I would go to the grocery sometimes just so I could remember the sound of my voice.”
The Rekonek star also considered the parallels and differences between British and Filipino people. “There were a lot of things that were actually I would say parang similar sa kanila. [Filipinos] are family-oriented, they are too. They like traditions, ‘yun they are very tradition oriented.”
In December 2021, Bela shared that she had relocated to London for more reasons than just being close to her Swiss boyfriend, Norman Bay. The actress clarified that she moved to the UK from the Philippines for a variety of reasons.
“There are many reasons why I moved here. One of them is because I feel like the world stopped during [the] pandemic and I have been looking for something new to do in my life. I feel like at this point, I will be more productive here. It just makes more sense for me to live here,” she stated at the time in her vlog on YouTube.
Bela has family in the UK as well. She is the daughter of British Cornelio Sullivan and Meg Cariño of the Padilla entertainment family.
