Gretchen Barretto issues clarification regarding ‘laugh out loud’ incident

On Instagram Live Saturday night, Gretchen Barretto issued a clarification regarding the ‘laugh out loud’ incident that turned viral over the weekend and earned for the former actress and her friends tremendous bashing.

"Hindi namin pinagtawanan yung may sakit. Bakit namin pagtatawanan yung may sakit," said Gretchen at one point of their 30-minute live video.

On June 6, the actress and her friends went live to grant wishes – a charity exercise that they have been practicing since Easter Sunday, April 1.

One of the wishes they granted was @JMula’s, who was identified by Gretchen as Jo-Ann Mula, a Surigaonon whose long-winded letter confused the three do-gooders.

Immediately, Gretchen and her friends apologized to JMula, who in turn accepted their apology. “We all take responsibility for what we did. We apologized right after we were laughing that night. This is between Patty Pineda, Mimi Que, myself, and Jmula. It was very rude, I admit. It was inappropriate. It was very unlady-like to behave that way.”

Unfortunately, the video was uploaded on Facebook, where it quickly turned viral. “I’m not here to blame the person…ayun ang nangyari. In-upload niya and then ang daming nag-share, and then ang daming nag-bash,” Gretchen continued.

She stayed silent for two days because “why answer that? Alam ko naman that Jo-Ann accepted our apology already. Why apologize to the public?”

Mimi Que added, “We are not buying our way out of the situation. We are owning to our mistake. We apologize.”

Said Gretchen, her daughter Dominique had already told her to grow up, “and I am trying my best to grow up,” Gretchen continued.

On Friday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, ran Jo-Ann’s statement: “Nanood ako sa live..natatawa rin ako kasi bisaya ako surigaonon. Tagalog sila so talagang mahirap intindihan ang letter ko.

“Akala nila laaht ng persons doon may request ako sa anak ko, kapatid ko na may cancer..hindi pala. Ensure lang pala. Okay lang po nakakatawa naman talaga.”

Clearly hit by the amount of nasty bashing, Gretchen said, “I never came up to say I’m pure. I never said I’m holy. I never pretended to be good. I never said mabait ako. I never claimed anything. Whether inaccept niya or not, I feel, I believe I owe her apology for being immature. I was immature. I am immature. I am a work in progress.”

Gretchen and her friends started granting wishes on Easter Sunday, after noticing how many of her followers would ask request for her things.

“Habang nagla-live ako, merong mga request, ‘Gretchen, bigyan mo naman ako ng Hermes’ or ‘pahingi ng isang pirasong South Sea pearl’... so sabi ko, next Sunday since it’s Easter Sunday, I will give in to requests,” Gretchen explained, adding that it became difficult to stop the charitable exercise because “more people needed help. Alam mo may kasabihan, pay it forward.”

Gretchen said that while they still want to continue with their charity work, they will have to rethink how to do it. “Ang mga wishers po naming, galing sa aking Instagram account. Paano nila malalaman na naga-grant kayo kung hindi ko ipo-post? Now if you can solve that problem for me, we can do it privately. I don’t have to announce it because totoo naman. Kung tutulong ka itulong mo. ‘wag mo i-announce.” — LA, GMA News