Vanessa Ho Is Treating Star Search Finalists To Hai Di Lao After Winning The $10K Prize Money

“English?” Star Search finalist Vanessa Ho immediately blurted out when 8days.sg caught up with her backstage after the Star Search 2019 finals. It has been a wild six months since the hunt for Mediacorp's Next Big Thing started, and it culminated last night (Nov 3) with Teoh Zetong, Herman Keh, and Ye Jiayun being named the winner, first runner-up and second runner-up respectively.

The 20-year-old NUS student may not have been placed in the Top 3, but the influencer-DJ managed to bag home a very attractive prize — the Samsung Galaxy Breakthrough Award. The award, which was given to the finalist who has shown the biggest improvement over the course of the competition, sees Vanessa receiving S$10,000 in cash as well as a trip to Korea.

“Hey! You’re the winner of the Breakthrough Award, you should be speaking in Mandarin!” Chang Hio Cheng chirped at the start of our chat with Vanessa, much to everyone's amusement.

Vanessa, who is currently the most-followed finalist on Instagram with over 74K followers, confessed that despite all her efforts to improve her Mandarin (she’s been reading her mentor Huang Biren’s kid’s primary school textbooks), she would still rather speak to us in English.

“When I first started, not only was my Mandarin bad, I was the most awkward dancer in the bunch!” laughed Vanessa . “I also couldn’t act for nuts! It was quite heartwarming to see my efforts being recognised ‘cos the rest of the contestants are very strong!”

So what is she going to do with the $10,000 prize money?

“First thing, I owe everyone in the finals a treat at Hai Di Lao. But Zetong’s gonna drive all of us there in his new car! (Laughs) He’ll definitely need to make a few trips for that. Was there a bet between us? Nah, we were all just joking that the person who wins [the competition] has to drive us around, of course,” she chuckled. “Being in the top three has never crossed my mind and I had got a good feeling about Zetong winning. I’m very happy for him ‘cos he’s like a brother to me!”

Vanessa also tells us that her receiving any sort of award is still pretty mind-blowing.

“It’s so unexpected! I love Korea and I’ve been there quite a few times, but I can’t wait to go back! I haven’t decided who to bring yet, but Samsung’s such a great brand to work with, and the products they gave us are fantastic! I can’t wait to discover more in Korea!” she beamed.

Photos: Mediacorp Photo Unit