Lolit Solis, one of the strongest voices in the entertainment industry, passed away on July 4, as confirmed by her daughter Sneezy on a Facebook post. She was 78 years old.

Solis rose to fame with her entertainment columns at the Philippine Star, delivering showbiz scoops that kept the nation captivated. She became a household name as the face of talk shows such as StarTalk and Scoop, known for her sharp commentary and unmistakable wit. Where there was controversy, Solis was never far behind.

For its May issue, Rolling Stone Philippines sat down with Solis for one of her final interviews before her passing. The long-time entertainment insider looked back on her storied career, the controversies that followed her, and her growing acceptance of death.

Lolit Solis is hard to find on Instagram. Instead of a profile, a warning against child sexual abuse pops up on the Explore page. Her detractors on Reddit attribute this to collective action — digital karma they believe the gossip veteran deserves for decades of talking trash about their favorite stars.

They wish digital karma worked that way. Searches for “Lolit Solis” are flagged by Meta because the name resembles “lolita,” a search term for content featuring underage girls. It doesn’t help that @akosilolitsolis tags her photos with #classiclolita. Then again, at 78, she’s not exactly a social media whiz. She has an iPhone — its font size so large that someone having a blowout at Bambbi Fuentes Salon, where we met for this interview, could read it from two chairs away — but beyond calls and texts, she doesn’t use it for much else.

For this online misstep, Solis might be forgiven. As for her other worldly sins, only God knows.

But Lolit Solis doesn’t fear death anymore. Since she was diagnosed with a kidney problem some years ago, twice-weekly dialysis treatments have become her life. They make her lethargic. Still, the entertainment journalist and talent manager finds time to post introspective Instagram quote cards straight out of Thought Catalog with captions like, “Dasal ko kay God, sana mapatawad niya ang mga nagawa kong kasalanan,” always prefaced with a greeting to an omnipresent “Salve.”

Salve isn’t an invocation of the divine. It’s literally her sending captions to her entertainment editor at Pilipino Star Ngayon and de facto confidante, Salve Asis, who posts on her behalf. Her health has impaired her speech. Her days of mile-a-minute thank-you spiels on StarTalk (remember “AlokBati”?) are over, but her mind remains sharp, even quicker than her mouth. So she returns to what she does best: writing.

Before she was a celebrity columnist, the University of the Philippines alumna was a ‘70s police beat reporter in a miniskirt. “Day, tuwing may ni-re-raid kaming prostitution house, ako ang unang hinuhuli ng mga pulis kasi nga naka-micro mini ako kalandian ko.” Thinking she was a liability, her editor often left her out of assignments. That’s when Douglas Quijano, who ran the entertainment pages at the Philippine Star, took her in. When her first celebrity story came out, her mother, who never read her crime stories, bought everyone in the neighborhood a copy to show off her daughter, the celebrity writer.

With a little prodding from the revered TV director Al Quinn, her mother’s star writer wasn’t just in print anymore. She was a TV talk show host, too, a role she flourished in until the last decade. “Sabi ko, ‘Hindi ako marunong mag-host.’ Sabi sa akin ni Direk Al Quinn, ‘Lolit, you being there, sitting there, ma-e-excite na ang mga tao dahil ikaw, bigla-bigla kung anu-anong lumalabas sa bunganga mo.’”

Solis, with her big mouth, didn’t stop at just writing or talking about stars. By the 1980s, she was managing them. It started when Regal Films’ Lily Monteverde asked Quijano to manage newcomer William Martinez, who had a rivalry with Gabby Concepcion, another “Regal Baby” (emerging talents under Regal Entertainment) “Sabi ni Douglas, ‘Halika, Lolit. Hahawakan ko si William, hawakan mo si Gabby.’ Sa gano’n, makakapag-isip kami ng gimik para doon sa dalawa. Kunwari magkaaway, ganyan.”

Pretty soon, celebrities were begging for her stern guidance: Tonton Gutierrez, Christopher de Leon, Lorna Tolentino, Rudy Fernandez, Bong Revilla. But they all knew she loved one of them more than the rest. Solis loved him so much, she did the unthinkable, nearly costing her everything.

“Imposibleng makalimutan mo ‘yon, no?” she recalls the 1994 Manila Film Festival scam, which she masterminded so her talent Concepcion could win the Best Actor award, with a laugh. “Ang nasa isip ko, ‘Ginawa ko ‘yon para sa‘yo.’ Pero siya, siyempre, nandoon din ‘yong sakit ng loob na ‘Napahiya ako sa buong mundo dahil sa‘yo.’”

“Siguro mas nakatulong kay Gabby that time kung ipinagtanggol niya ako. Kasi noong inilaglag niya ako, ‘yong sympathy napunta sa akin — na hindi rin niya siguro naisip was possible, dahil kilala akong salbahe, maldita, atribida; marami akong kaaway. Ako din naman, naisip ko, ‘Sino pang kakampi sa‘yo, e gaga ka?’”

The ensuing Manila City Hall hearing with Mayor Alfredo Lim was the first time the public saw one of the meanest gossip girls break down. That moment made her rethink what she’d done: “Bakit ko ginawa ‘yon, e hindi naman pala niya [Concepcion] ma-a-appreciate?”

The scandal’s fallout was so bad, there were rumors the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines, Inc. (DGPI), which practically had the power to erase anyone from local showbiz, wanted artists and directors to stop working with her. It was just her luck that for every ungrateful talent, there was one willing to back her, even when she made the gravest of mistakes.

“Sabi sa akin ng secretary ni Rudy Fernandez, umiyak daw si Rudy [after finding out about the DGPI plot to oust her],” she remembers, implying the late action star had a hand in salvaging her career after the infamous 1994 scam, along with former DGPI President Peque Gallaga. “Hindi naman nag-push through ‘yon, kasi kung hindi, wala na ako sa showbiz.”

“Hindi ko ma-imagine. What will I do? This is the world I love. Tapos hindi na ako puwede?”

But Lolit has always been strong of mind. “Moments of madness,” as she calls them, keep her sharp. “Mental challenge lang sa akin na, ‘What if I do this?’ Parang ‘yong scam. Naisip ko lang, ‘Gawin ko nga ‘to.’ Actually, nakalusot sana ‘yon kung wala lang doon si Mayor Lim. E kung mga taga-showbiz lang ang nandoon, ang magiging reaction lang is, ‘Naku si Lolit…’ Paglabas ko nga, sinalubong ako ni Douglas [ang sabi lang niya], ‘Lolit, may ginawa ka na namang kalokohan,’” she recalls — proof of how sharp her memory still is despite her current health condition, but also as if to confess to her old insidious ways. 

Between the 1994 Manila Film Festival scam, Sam Milby and Piolo Pascual’s P12-million libel case against her for a story she wrote that implied the two were in a relationship back in 2007 (which was eventually dropped), and a series of online tirades against Bea Alonzo that ended in an apology from Solis, the veteran entertainment journalist’s life has quieted down. 

A little too quiet, some people close to her fear. Actor and senatorial bet Revilla, one of her loyal talents, recently called her: “‘Nay, ang tahimik mo. Natatakot ako baka kung ano na namang binabalak mo.’”

On a good day, Solis, er, Asis, posts two to three Instagram photos. Revilla must have wondered why there was none one day. Last December, she announced she was leaving the platform for good with a photo of a Christmas gift basket from Toni Gonzaga and Paul Soriano. The caption read: “It’s about time I retire dahil ako na lang sa barkada namin ang natitira,” referring to her fellow entertainment journalists Ricky Lo and Mario Dumawal, who passed away in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

Her Instagram resurrection came only a day longer than Jesus’ — on January 2. Apparently, the busy editor Asis neglected to post the content Solis had sent earlier that morning, prompting the septuagenarian to say, “Hindi na ako mag-a-IG!” in a fit of rage. “At this point in time, hindi ko pwedeng iwan ang IG. Siya na lang ang emotional outlet ko. Biro mo, magda-dialysis ka one day, tapos next session, dead na ‘yong kasabay mo? Iisipin mo, ‘Putangina! Bakit pa ako magpapa-dialysis kung ganoon din naman ang ending: matsu-tsugi ka din naman?’”

“I don’t fear death anymore — basta kailangan maganda lang ang death ko. Sana people remember me with kindness, with a smile. Sure na akong mangyayari ‘yan. Nangyari na ‘yan noong scam e, noong akala ko I’m dead, pero hindi.”