James Reid on Nadine Lustre: ‘No one understood me the way that she did’

MANILA, Philippines – James Reid and Nadine Lustre are one of the country’s biggest love teams, but there’s more to their relationship than the chemistry that oozes out of the screen whenever they share it.

For James, Nadine helped pull him out of what he described as “the height of [his] depression,” a time when he just wanted to throw in the towel on his career, “drop everything and say goodbye to everything.”

“I was so affected by what fans said. At that time I was still so affected by what people were telling me, everything like that, and people telling me how to be, what to do with my life,” he said.

He then shared that he took a trip to Japan alone, to get away from the country, and from both his fans and bashers. When he got back, his relationship with Nadine “really started to kick off.”

“With her, I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone, I could just be myself completely, pick my nose in front of her. It was liberating for me,” he shared.

“In the end she became the only one that I wanted to please and she definitely helped me through probably the darkest time of my life, and I’ve been there for her, through hers.”

James said that he is more open now, and that he is “probably in the best time of [his] life.”

“No one understood me the way that she did and I couldn’t talk to anyone else about my problems. Being able to share it with someone, because like I would just bottle it all up and try to forget it but it doesn’t work that way. Pain shared is half the pain,” he said.

For this couple, the support goes both ways – in January 2018, Nadine shared that she suffered from depression following the death of her brother Isaiah, and that she got through with the support of her family and James.

“For everyone who’s going through depression, find someone who’s gonna listen to you and help you go through it,” she said at a 2018 press conference.

James and Nadine have been together since February 2016, and went public with their relationship at their JaDine In Love concert that same month. In March 2019, James confirmed that he and Nadine are living together. – Rappler.com