Charice Pempengco
Charice Pempengco now goes by the name Jake Zyrus, and he received support from various international publications. Pictured: Zyrus at the Pinoy Relief Benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in New York on March 11, 2014. Getty Images/Mike Coppola

“Glee” recurring guest star Charice Pempengco recently announced that he has changed his name to Jake Zyrus.

In 2014, the 25-year-old Filipino singer sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey, where he said that his soul is male despite being born in a woman’s body. However, Zyrus also clarified at the time that he doesn’t have plans to undergo gender reassignment procedures. “I’ll cut my hair and wear boy clothes and everything, but that’s all,” he said.

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Over the weekend, the award-winning singer posted his first tweet as Zyrus and deleted all of his photos on his other social media accounts. Following her announcement, multiple publications picked up his story, and Zyrus couldn’t be more grateful for their support.

On his Twitter account, the first ever Asian solo singer to have landed in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart retweeted the articles written about him. In one of his other tweets, Zyrus expressed his delight when some people at a local fast food, Jollibee, called him by his new name.

Zyrus first rose to fame in 2007 after his YouTube videos went viral. He was invited to appear not only on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, but also on Ellen DeGeneres’ the “Ellen Show.” Some of his covers that made a huge impact on fans included “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” “My Heart Will Go On,” “I Will Always Love You” and “I Have Nothing.” Almost 10 years ago, Zyrus also had the chance to perform with Celine Dion at the Madison Square Garden. The two singers sang “Because You Loved Me.”

Meanwhile, Zyrus’ international TV credits include a stint on the hit FOX musical series, “Glee.” In the show, the singer gave life to the character of Sunshine Corazon, a talented young singer and foreign exchange student who joined the New Directions briefly. Sunshine developed a rivalry with Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), which resulted in the former transferring to Vocal Adrenaline and back to New Directions later on. Some of the songs he performed in “Glee” include “Telephone,” “Listen” and “All By Myself.”

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