The Misunderstood Boys: Will Ashley and Ralph De Leon Up Close

GMA Network

6 days ago

Will Ashley has always had that good-boy image. Soft spoken. Polite. The kind of guy you wouldn't expect to be caught in the middle of any drama. And yet, there he was — not once, but twice — caught in some of the thorniest storylines both inside and outside the Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Collab Edition house.
Ralph de Leon, on the other hand, entered with a different reputation — the quiet, well-off cousin of Jake Cuenca, always seemingly one step removed from the chaos. People had ideas about him before he even said a word.
This was part of my sit-down for GMA Integrated News Interviews. I had the privilege to observe these two young men not from a screen, but in person, just a few feet away. Every shift in posture, every breath between words, every moment they looked down before answering — I saw it all. And it's in those small, unspoken spaces where you begin to understand who a person really is.
Unlike some celebrity boys their age, Will and Ralph didn't try to win the room. They just sat there and told the truth. No effort to impress. No drama. Just two young men saying exactly how it was.
Let's start with Will.
Off-cam, he's found himself tied to headlines: The much-publicized rift between Jillian Ward and Sofia Pablo, the so-called triangle with Bianca de Vera and Dustin Yu inside Kuya's house — a storyline that fans clung to even if Will insists there was nothing to begin with.
'Wow, triangle,' he said, nearly laughing in disbelief when I brought it up. 'To be honest, wala po talagang naging triangle sa loob ng bahay. Alam po talaga ng housemates 'yan.'
I pushed. Why were they being shipped so strongly, if there was really nothing there?
'Kasi nagkaroon po kami siguro ng work together — 'Unbreak My Heart',' he offered. And the rumors of jealousy between him and Dustin? 'That I don't know. Talaga.'
There was no tampuhan, no awkward air between them. Will was clear — he supported Dustin and Bianca from the start. 'We had a talk na support ko sila,' he said. 'Sinasabi ko po 'yun sa kaniya talaga… Masaya ako sa naging istorya nila. Sana madala nila sa labas.'
No territory marking there. Just a young man saying, "I was happy for them."
As always, Will speaks with care. Not guarded, but aware. He thinks first and chooses his words with calmness. He knows he's been asked these things before and knows how easily they can be misunderstood. He's not out to prove anything. But he's also not backing away from questions that follow him everywhere.
Then came the question he's probably been dodging for months: his name being dragged into the Jillian-Sofia issue.
'Honestly, it's not my thing to say po talaga kung ano ang dahilan ng pinag-awayan nila,' he told me. 'Para sa akin, meron pong reason talaga kung bakit... At kung mabibigyan ako ng pagkakataon, at pareho po silang bukas para mag-usap o maayos kung ano man yung pinagmulan talaga, gagawin ko po. Gagawin ko.'
He didn't sound bitter. Just honest. And if things do get fixed between the two, you can tell he'd welcome it.
Then there's Ralph.
If Will has been misunderstood for being too kind, Ralph has been misunderstood for being too still. Too unreadable. Too rich, even. He was an easy target from the start. And when he got voted out then returned as a housemate, the chatter got even louder.
But Ralph has always been aware of how people perceive him. That awareness is what pushed him to step into PBB.
'Minsan, nami-misunderstand yung pagiging tahimik ko,' he told me. 'Iniisip ng mga tao na boring ako, na wala akong personality. Yun po ang gusto kong i-disprove sa pagpasok ko ng PBB.'
He didn't go in to prove he could talk louder than the rest. He went in to show that even silence carries weight.
'I also worked for my craft,' Ralph said when I asked him about privilege. 'Lahat po ng nabigay sa akin to date, it's because napaghirapan ko po talaga. I have not been handed anything... I wanted it to be that way also.'
And when the backlash came after his return to the house, he didn't fight it. He braced for it.
"Ako po, pine-prepare ko na ang sarili ko for the worst-case scenario,' he said. 'There's always something bad that could happen, and preparing for the worst is something I want to do also.'
Both Ralph and Will walked into that house with labels already hanging over their heads. Will was the nice guy caught in the middle of feuds and budding love triangles. Ralph was the rich kid people assumed had it easy. They weren't the flashiest, and they didn't win the crowd right away. But they grew on people — not because of a storyline, but because they stayed consistent, even when others painted them differently.
Being misunderstood is hard enough. It's harder when millions are watching, forming opinions in real time. But Will and Ralph didn't adjust themselves just to fit a narrative. They didn't scramble to correct every impression. They stayed the course. They knew who they were, and they didn't let anyone else define that for them.
I've known Will for years. I've seen him grow up in this industry — seen the charm, the discipline, and how people expect him to always play the part of the good guy. Ralph, I met for the first time during this interview. And yet in that short span, sitting just across from him, I saw the same thing I've long known about Will: a kind of steadiness that doesn't need to be loud to be real. These are young men who've been judged, misunderstood, and at times unfairly criticized — but they never tried to become someone else just to be accepted.
In the end, their story says something bigger than just what happened inside that house. It's about how quick we are to decide who someone is, based on what little we see or hear. Will and Ralph may not have been the loudest or the most attention-grabbing, but they showed that it's possible to stand your ground without putting on a show. That honesty, restraint, and self-respect still have a place — even in a world that often rewards the opposite. And that's a reminder worth looking into. — LA, GMA Integrated News