From buying 1st home to going on pilgrimage: Local celebs share their highlights of 2024
(From left) Carrie Wong bought her first home, Taufik Batisah and his wife went to Mecca.
PHOTO: Instagram/Carrie Wong, Instagram/Taufik Batisah
PUBLISHED ONDecember 22, 2024 7:00 AMByDrima ChakrabortySo long, 2024, and thanks for the memories!
As the year comes to an end, AsiaOne asked local celebrities about their highlights of 2024, and for some, their best moments were professional.
Host Xixi Lim won one of the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes awards at Star Awards 2024 and made a mad dash from where she was filming the backstage interviews to the main stage to receive her accolade.
She remembered it fondly, telling us that she never thought she'd hear her name be announced and get to hold the trophy.
"What made it more memorable was that a lot of the crew members were crying," the 36-year-old added. "They've seen me come a long way from a nobody to a somebody."
She was also nominated for the 29th Asian Television Awards this year and is delighted that she's being recognised for her hosting skills.
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Singer-host Suthasini Rajenderan, 34, pointed to winning Most Popular Female Personality at Mediacorp's Pradhana Vizha award show as her highlight of the year, and being the first female music composer of the broadcaster's Deepavali campaign.
For actor Vishnu M. Anandh, it was winning Best Actor and All-Time Favourite Artiste at Pradhana Vizha that stood out.
He's also looking forward to hosting Vasantham's reality talent show V Supreme next year, his return to live show hosting after 12 years, and also making his English-language debut in Channel 5's long-form drama Provocative.
"On a personal note, I got married to the sweetest thing I know in March this year, a life-defining moment," Vishnu added.
He's also been "trained" to keep his bedroom and office cleaner by his wife in 2024, he added, and to eat and sleep healthier.
"My new housemate aka my better half keeps me in check, to be better," he said.
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Actress Tay Ying shared that stepping out of her comfort zone for The Blockbusters, where she had to gain 10 kg and play a plus-size idol, was one of the highlights of her year.
The 28-year-old previously told AsiaOne that she realised what larger-sized individuals go through is "not nice" and wondered why people are so mean, and that she was no stranger to hateful comments herself.
"Just because I'm an artiste doesn't mean I have to be used to bullying… I still believe that artistes are not here to be bullied."
Host Thavanesan Sivananthan shared that one of his best moments was coming up with the promotional campaign and being an emcee for Indian singer-composer Anirudh Ravichander's Singapore concert.
The 32-year-old has also been making a name for himself by imitating Indian actors on social media, in particular saying the word "Daddy" as Tamil cinema actor Suriya. Now his audience asks Thavanesan "Where's Daddy?" in every video he uploads.
"To this day, I'm not sure if Suriya himself is aware of this trend, which makes it even funnier!" he added.
Others also listed personal achievements as their highlights.
Actress Carrie Wong became a homeowner earlier this year, telling us: "It was a great milestone for me, and I'd been searching for quite long. I didn't purposely plan it, but it happened at age 30 so it was like, wow!"
She'd been looking at listings and didn't want to rush, having certain criteria she wanted to fulfil, but she felt that this place was the one when she went to check it out.
"I love my houses to be airy, I love the sunlight to be coming through, and I love a balcony. It ticked all the boxes," she added.
In 2024, Carrie also picked up tennis as a new hobby and told us her favourite social media trend of the year was memorial posts on TikTok from pets, showing their lives "from young to when they pass" set to the song Someday I'll Get It by Alek Olsen.
"All I do on TikTok is cry for strangers," she added.
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For actress-presenter Munah Bagharib, 2024 has been a "big year full of surprises and curveballs", but a significant moment was having her first family vacation since Covid-19.
"It's been a long while since I've travelled with my parents because life got in the way, but we finally planned one this year to go to Japan and it was so lovely to have that family time away with my parents," the 37-year-old told us.
Actor Jeffrey Xu also got to spend time with his family after six years.
"Recently, I took a swim with my parents at the infinity pool on top of the Marina Bay Sands, Felicia (Chin, his actress wife) was there too," the 36-year-old said. "The time we spent together as a family is something that I treasure dearly."
He's also gotten into the habit of taking 5km walks with Felicia two to three times a week, discussing issues in life and encouraging one another, and making plans for the next year all while exercising.
Singer Taufik Batisah got to visit Mecca for Umrah with his wife Sheena Akbal earlier this year, which he told us was a meaningful experience. He's also started going to the mosque more regularly for Fajr prayers in the morning, which he calls a "grounding habit".
His favourite social media moment of the year was one he and Sheena concocted. In an Instagram Reel, she prays for the "stress" in her life to disappear and, lo and behold, Taufik poofs into thin air.
Taufik, 43, will be performing at Mediacorp's Let's Celebrate 2025 countdown show and will be a judge next year for the singing competition Kaki Nyanyi.
While many pointed to happy moments as their highlights of 2024, radio DJ Joakim Gomez finds himself concerned about the rise in stabbing cases this year, and shared that his habit of having an "unconventional" sleep cycle this year was one he hoped to improve on in 2025.
The 36-year-old will also be hosting Let's Celebrate 2025 with Munah, and I Can See Your Voice Singapore, Mediacorp's adaptation of the mystery game show that tries to determine whether someone is a good or bad singer without hearing their voices.
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While many social media trends in 2024 have been fun and entertaining, actor Richie Koh has spotted more AI content on his feed.
"What I've been seeing is people using AI to create a video and they use some essay from another software and put it together and it becomes an Instagram page and they earn money from it," the 31-year-old shared.
He's been seeing AI "motivational quotes" accounts pop up and thought: "Wah, like that also can?"
Richie has also seen this technology take a dark turn, using people's videos and "changing their words" and turning it into "fake news".
"People are really quite heartless," he added.
Richie also considered his jam-packed year of work his highlight, not the outing of his relationship with local actress Hayley Woo. His drama Coded Love was released this year.
"I don't let other people affect me," he said. "People can say a lot, but how it affects you is how you perceive it."
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drimac@asiaone.com
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