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Martin Nievera opens up about getting bullied as a child in America: ‘I would get beat up’

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Push Team

<div>Content warning: This article discusses bullying. Reader discretion is advised.</div><div> </div>Martin Nievera was not always the confident man audiences see on stage. Before he became the Concert King, he was just a kid eating lunch with the other outcasts, trying to stay out of harm&#x27;s way.The veteran singer opened up about being bullied during his childhood in Hawaii on the sixth episode of Gary Valenciano&#x27;s podcast Unshaken. The conversation started on a lighter note, with Gary sharing his first memory of Martin – a young heartthrob who had an entire army of students clearing the way for him at a show.&quot;The first time I met him was in a place called Miriam College. At that time, it was called Maryknoll. And I didn&#x27;t even meet him. I saw him from a distance with all the minions of Maryknoll, or Miriam students guiding him and telling me, &#x27;Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Martin Nievera has a show. Can he go ahead of you?&#x27; Now, this was like the 15th time that night that I was told the same thing. So I ended up becoming the last performer following Martin Nievera, who at that time was the biggest thing. He was the newest, the biggest, and the brightest star that was shining,&quot; Gary recalled.He also remembered how Martin performed a song that night that Gary himself had planned to sing, except Martin&#x27;s version had been specially arranged by Homer Flores, while Gary&#x27;s came from a copy he bought at Unimart. &quot;That&#x27;s the first time I laid eyes on this man. Who knew that we would actually do a show together called &#x27;Rhythm of the City&#x27;? Like MTV kind of thing back in the day,&quot; he said.Gary went on to praise Martin&#x27;s ability to connect with people – on stage and off – noting that it was something he had observed from the very beginning.&quot;I love talking about the journey I&#x27;ve had with this man, Martin. That&#x27;s how I remember you. You&#x27;ve been consistent from that time until today, being a solid friend. When people see you and they see you on stage, if there&#x27;s one thing that they notice, it&#x27;s the way you connect with your people. You have always been one that I&#x27;ve learned from with regard to how to communicate with people, how to feel the moment, how to handle things that are unexpected,&quot; Gary said.Martin credited years of mistakes for shaping who he is on stage today. &quot;Because I am a person. And I think that sometimes I read the minds of my audience, and I think that they know when I&#x27;m struggling, they know when I&#x27;m not secure, they know when I&#x27;m not prepared. So I always make the obvious really obvious,&quot; he said.Gary then pointed out something specific about Martin&#x27;s stage presence – the way he can bring an audience member into the spotlight without ever making them feel embarrassed. &quot;Some people are funny on stage, but then sometimes nangingibabaw &#x27;yung pagiging nakakatawa nila. Compared to their talent, yours is just spot on. You&#x27;re singing a song, and you go down to somebody who doesn&#x27;t even know how to sing, and people laugh at that person, but you don&#x27;t treat it like a joke, you treat it like a fun time,&quot; Gary said.That observation led Gary to ask where it all came from. The answer took the conversation somewhere unexpected.Martin revealed that as a child, he was constantly bullied across the public schools he attended throughout America. In Hawaii, his mother insisted on dressing him in tucked-in shirts, belts, and penny loafers – clothing that marked him as an outsider in a school environment where that kind of look drew unwanted attention.&quot;I&#x27;ve always been, as a child, I&#x27;ve always been picked on. I&#x27;ve always been bullied. I used to have lunch with special kids, with obese kids, with very skinny kids. Races back in the &#x27;70s and &#x27;80s were really awful,&quot; he said.&quot;I would have lunch and recess with them, because I would be hiding along with them. Now, why was I hiding? Because I was always a fat kid. Or in Hawaii, if you wore a belt and shoes, that&#x27;s trouble. You&#x27;re either rich or gay,&quot; he added.The bullying was not just teasing. It was physical.&quot;So I was always picked on as a kid because my mom always made me wear clothes — you tuck in your shirt, you wear a belt, and you wear penny loafers. You don&#x27;t dress like that in a public school in Hawaii. I would dress like that in school, so I would get beat up a lot. I would get my lunch money stolen. Because I went to public schools all over America, where I grew up,&quot; he said.His twin sister Vicky would step in to fight for him – but that only made things worse the next day. &quot;Vicky, my twin sister, would fight for me. So the following day, I would get beat up even more because &#x27;Why is your sister fighting your battles?&#x27; But in my case, when I would get beat up or when I would get my lunch money taken and so on. Vicky, my twin sister, would fight for me,&quot; he said.Martin said those years of feeling small and defeated are precisely why he treats every audience member with dignity, including the ones who cannot sing a note.&quot;I think it&#x27;s that being so defeated all the time, walking through school with my head down all the time, trying to hide myself. I&#x27;m able to, I don&#x27;t know, I guess relate to the people in the audience who, if just by chance, I choose someone who is not a great singer, if by chance, I choose someone who actually maybe doesn&#x27;t have teeth — I didn&#x27;t know until they opened their mouth when they started singing. I don&#x27;t make fun of them because I know what that feels like. I&#x27;ve been there before,&quot; he said.In the same interview, Martin also talked about his lifelong dream of becoming a singer, one he traced back to watching his father perform with the popular pop group Society of Seven.&quot;My father was a singer with a group called the Society of Seven. I always dreamed of being one of the seven,&quot; he said.He admitted he was not a natural. In fact, he was not good at all. &quot;Absolutely not. Oh, my God. It was terrible singing,&quot; he said when asked if he could sing well as a child.Gary pressed him on it: &quot;So how could you have that dream if you didn&#x27;t even think that you could sing?&quot; Martin&#x27;s answer was simple. &quot;That&#x27;s why it&#x27;s a dream. When my dad would go out on stage and sing, and the way he&#x27;d interpret a song, more often than not, he would always get standing ovations. He would get those big power ballads back in the day, the impossible dream and so on. So I wanted that. I wanted that same feeling – my hair would stand up as a young kid, you know?&quot; he said.&quot;I was falling in love with love. I had never been in love in my whole life, but I was feeling that feeling that he was getting, and I said, &#x27;That&#x27;s what I want to do. That&#x27;s what I want to become.&#x27; But I didn&#x27;t know if I could sing,&quot; he continued.As it turned out, his father had a sense of what was there all along. He would secretly record Martin singing in the shower and play the tape at the dinner table – less as encouragement and more as teasing. &quot;My father used to take a tape recorder, and then when I&#x27;m in the shower singing, he&#x27;d tape-record my singing from the shower and play it at the dinner table. And embarrass the heck out of me because he&#x27;d do that every night,&quot; Martin said.When Gary asked if his father knew he was blessed with a voice, Martin laughed it off. &quot;I don&#x27;t know if blessed is the right word. Very generous with the word. I think the word is more because he was trying to tease me with that. But that&#x27;s how it was discovered,&quot; he said.

Martin Nievera shares that he was bullied as a child while studying in America because of his clothing and his weight.

Martin Nievera shares that he was bullied as a child while studying in America because of his clothing and his weight.

Martin Nievera opens up about getting bullied as a child in America: ‘I would get beat up’

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Martin Nievera opens up about getting bullied as a child in America: ‘I would get beat up’

Push Team,

Paolo Lim

Published July 05, 2026 10:26 AM PHT

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Martin Nievera

Gary Valenciano

Unshaken Podcast

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