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James Reid and Issa Pressman

ABS-CBN News

MANILA — Actor James Reid opened up about the depth of his relationship with Issa Pressman in a new vlog by journalist Karen Davila, reflecting on the challenges she faced — from mental-health struggles to online attacks — and how he supported her through it.For the first time, Pressman not only opened the doors of her home with Reid, but also talked about how she struggled with mental health issues, being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and how cyberbullying almost ended her life.Before the interview concluded, Reid also shared how meaningful it was to see Pressman open up about her experience.&quot;Her voice was taken away. She couldn&#x27;t couldn&#x27;t defend herself, and she had people on the outside, hitting on her. She had people on the inside, within my own group of friends, people I&#x27;ve worked with, people who betrayed me, who were trying to also attack her from the inside. It was just an all-out assault. And it felt like she couldn&#x27;t defend herself, and it felt like she had no voice,&quot; he said.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1763096268084Issa_James2.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib fr-dragging" width="960"/>Screen grab: YouTube/Karen Davila</div>&quot;I&#x27;m just so happy to hear her finally tell this story to someone else. And to everyone, actually. ...I&#x27;m just so happy that everyone gets to hear the truth that I&#x27;ve heard for so long, and everyone gets to see... how beautiful of a person Issa is that I&#x27;ve seen all along,&quot; Reid added.For Reid, he was able to stand by Pressman during her darkest times because of love. &quot;It was just love. I&#x27;d never had one single shadow of a doubt that it was her. No one ever made me feel the way I feel, with her. And when she was going through that, I said, I don&#x27;t know how I know this, but if you can get through this, you&#x27;re going to be the strongest person I know. I said, &#x27;You&#x27;re going to be my greatest teacher. You&#x27;re going to be the one that teaches me about love. You&#x27;re going to be the one that teaches me about what it means to be strong, what it means to love, what it needs to be kind.&#x27; And funny enough, it has turned out that way,&quot; Reid shared.&quot;Issa doesn&#x27;t have a single mean bone in her body, and she&#x27;s the kindest person that I&#x27;ve ever met. And I think that everything that she&#x27;s going through now with all the bashers only proves everything that I thought about her. That even with all of that darkness, she was able to still turn it into something beautiful. But, like we said, when we heard about Emman (Atienza), she looked at me and said, &#x27;I need to say something.&#x27; I said, &#x27;Really, now?&#x27; And she&#x27;s like, &#x27;Now.&#x27; There&#x27;s something that made me feel like if I had said something before, maybe it could have made a difference. Even a small one. And then I said, &#x27;Okay, I think, I think you&#x27;re ready,&#x27;&quot; Reid said.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1763096317744Issa_James.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib fr-dragging" width="960"/>Screen grab: YouTube/Karen Davila</div>In the vlog, Pressman also opened up about being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. She said she was in a teenager when she admitted to her father that she had a girlfriend.&quot;And then he said, &#x27;Well, I hope that you&#x27;d end up with a husband, and I want you to have kids, but more important, I want you to be happy.&#x27; And from then on, I would say, no one else could judge me because my dad didn&#x27;t. I posted and during that time, not much people were posting about girl-to-girl relationships, but I was so brave and I was so proud. And I got so much hate. Ito &#x27;yung pinaka-first experience ko na online bullying,&quot; recalled Pressman, who endured harsh sexualized abuse online, including threats that she would “burn in hell.”&quot;There was so much more that was ugly, but I was able to mute it, because a bigger chunk where people messaging me, saying, you inspired me so much, thank you because of what you&#x27;re saying, because of how you&#x27;re proud it makes me feel like I can, too. There&#x27;s so many people who are out now who weren&#x27;t then, and they were messaging me and they were admiring me, and I was like, one day, whoever is trying to come out, if they want to come out, please let them, let them be themselves, let them laugh. After that, you&#x27;re gonna see them flourish and then turn into such a beautiful person. Pero kapag ini-stop sila, they&#x27;re not going to grow. How will they be happy? What is life for? So that was really one thing that I really stood up for at that time,&quot; Pressman said.Pressman said her relationship with her first girlfriend lasted a year, while her second same-sex relationship lasted three years.After that, Pressman got into a male relationship.Pressman said she was bullied for being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but added that it was something that she could handle. &quot;At the same time parang for me you are bashing me for things you feel like you are right about because I get that. Sometimes it&#x27;s hard for people to understand bisexuality, being gay, being trans. I get that other people can not understand that. But, like, I think let&#x27;s leave it at that. We don&#x27;t have to convince you to understand, we don&#x27;t have to convince you to love, but then we can convince you to respect, hindi ba?&quot; Pressman said.

James Reid and Issa Pressman gave a rare glimpse into their private struggles in Karen Davila’s newest vlog, discussing the pressures of online backlash, mental-health challenges, and how they navigated it together.

James Reid and Issa Pressman gave a rare glimpse into their private struggles in Karen Davila’s newest vlog, discussing the pressures of online backlash, mental-health challenges, and how they navigated it together.

James Reid opens up on staying with Issa Pressman through her tough times

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James Reid opens up on staying with Issa Pressman through her tough times

ABS-CBN News

Published November 14, 2025 01:49 PM PHT

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Issa Pressman

cyberbullying

James Reid

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