Zhang Zetong & Tasha Low Really Want To Move Past "Star Search Champ" & "K-pop [Star]" Labels. Why?

In showbiz, it's pretty common for celebrities to be remembered only by that one or two things they're best known for. 

And usually, it is very difficult for them to shake off these labels. 

In the first episode of Our Hillside Moments — the spin-off variety show from Mediacorp blockbuster Emerald Hill — cast members Zhang Zetong, Romeo Tan, Xiu Jie Kai, Tasha Low and Jesseca Liu played a game of Truth or Dare.

That was when they were asked about the "labels they've been given that they despise the most."

Romeo first confessed that he doesn't like it when people only know him as a "boy-next-door".

The Star Search 2010 third-runner up lamented that he's been typecast as that since joining showbiz, and that it only stopped after he played the incendiary villain in Emerald Hill this year.

"If it's not boy-next-door then it's just 'rich young master'," he added. "Sometimes people are very stubborn, if they only remember you as that, you'll have to do a lot of things to get rid of that label."

Still, Romeo acknowledged that "at least boy-next-door or rich young master are positive images".

Zetong then shared that the label that has been "the hardest to shed" is that he is a "Star Search champion". 

"When you're the champion, people will have great expectations of you," said the 2019 winner.

When Romeo chimed in that people would sometimes jeer: "You're the champion leh, but you don't act well?", Zetong concurred. 

"Yes, [or they will ask] 'How do you deserve to win?'," he replied.

It's why Zetong was thrilled when the company held the next Star Search competition five years later.

"In 2024 when they did another Star Search, many people asked me how I felt and I said: 'Wow, so happy! Finally someone can take this load off me. Quickly, quickly, take [the title] from me, I really don't want it'," he quipped.

That was how he finally "passed the baton" to Star Search 2024 champion Tiffany Ho, we think. 

But Zetong wasn't the only one who surprised us with his answer.

Though Tasha initially "didn't know" which label she hates most, Romeo immediately reminded her that it could be that she was a "K-pop [star]". 

"K-pop is one of them, because people would always remember me by my image back then," said the former leader of now-defunct South Korean girl group Skarf. 

The group debut in August 2012 but quietly disbanded by the end of 2014. 

"Now when they see me, they might be quite disappointed, because I barely achieved anything [in Korea]. So when people bring it up, I will get quite shy," she said.

The very encouraging Romeo, however, told Tasha that she should try to "look at it from another perspective".

"Some people would love to have this label but they don't even get a chance," he consoled. 

True, how many people can say they once got to live the K-pop idol dream?