Ricky Lo

Ricardo F. Lo (born April 21, 1968), more popularly known as Ricky Lo, is an entertainment writer, showbiz commentator, and TV host from the Philippines.

Biography

Lo, born of Chinese descent,^[1] is a native of Las Navas, Northern Samar, where he finished grade school. He finished high school at the bilingual Tabaco Pei Ching School in Tabaco, Albay, and took up AB English at the University of the East.

From 1969 to 1972, Ricky worked as editorial assistant of Variety magazine, the Sunday supplement of the old Manila Times where he started his Funfare column. After this, he joined the Philippine Daily Express first as staff writer of its Express Week magazine and then as deskman of The Evening Express and eventually its main broadsheet. He later went on to work as editorial assistant for its Sunday magazine, Weekend, until 1986.

Lo did stint as entertainment editor- first at The Manila Times and then at The Manila Chronicle and currently at The Philippine Star where he also writes his revived FunFare column and his regular Sunday feature, Conversations with Ricky Lo.

Ricky is the author of Star-Studded, the first compilation of his articles on movie stars, which he released in 1995. Another book, Conversations with Ricky Lo was released in 2001. The book bear Lo's trademark sensitive, intelligent and penetrating style of handling interviews.

In 1999, Lo became one of the hosts of the showbiz-oriented talk show, The Buzz of ABS-CBN.^[2] He later transferred to GMA 7 and hosted Startalk.^[3] He also hosted other showbiz-oriented programs such as The Ricky Lo Exclusives in QTV 11 and Showbiz Stripped.

Lo is the first to explode the Martin Nievera and Pops Fernandez break up. Then, in 2008, the Karylle and Dingdong Dantes break up.^[4]

In January 2013, Lo's interview with Anne Hathaway draws flak from netizens.^[5] Critics say that the interview was a disgrace with questions that seemed not fitting to a well-known actress.^[5] Although, colleagues in the industry supported him and mentioned his long experience in entertainment journalism. Lo was amused with the negative comments and he is not offended by it.^[6] Some of Lo's awkward questions thrown at Hathaway were about her weight loss in the film Les Misérables and real-life experience with hunger that seems offended the actress.^[6] Lea Salonga, who was mentioned in the interview, explained that while she cannot speak for Hathaway, she has been trained to expect all kinds of questions, ranging from broadsheet to tabloid. Although, Salonga noted that interviews are also about how questions are asked.^[7]

TV shows

• The Buzz, ABS-CBN (1999-2003)
• Showbiz Stripped, GMA 7
• The Ricky Lo Exclusives, QTV 11
• Startalk, GMA 7 (2009)

References