Veteran actress Dina Bonnevie has revisited one of the most painful chapters of her life, revealing how rejection, single motherhood, faith, and sheer determination pushed her to rebuild herself after the collapse of her marriage to Vic Sotto.
Speaking in the August 21, 2026 episode of her YouTube program House of D, Bonnevie reflected on heartbreak and the difficult process of knowing when to finally walk away from a relationship.
Although she did not repeatedly name the former husband she was discussing in that portion of the conversation, PEP.ph identified the relationship as her marriage to Sotto. The former couple married in 1982, had two children—Danica Sotto-Pingris and Oyo Boy Sotto—and separated in 1986. Their marriage was later annulled in 1992.
For Bonnevie, leaving was not an impulsive decision.
She recalled reaching the point where repeated attempts to save the relationship no longer seemed to change anything.
“It was painful, it was a big blow on me,” Bonnevie said, explaining that the breakup badly affected her confidence and made her question her own worth.
She wondered whether she had somehow failed—not only as a wife but as a person.
But instead of allowing the rejection to dictate the rest of her life, Bonnevie said she eventually made a conscious decision to move forward.
FROM HEARTBREAK TO SINGLE MOTHERHOOD
At the time, Bonnevie was not simply dealing with a failed marriage.
She also had two young children to raise.
Rather than viewing single motherhood as the end of her opportunities, she said she began examining what she could still do with her talents and abilities.
She refused to cope through destructive habits and instead focused on work, her children, and rebuilding her career.
That decision would prove pivotal.
Bonnevie said her show-business career eventually “bloomed,” transforming a period she once viewed as rejection into a turning point in her professional and personal life.
Her recollection echoes remarks she made more than a decade ago.
In a 2014 interview reported by GMA News, Bonnevie remembered that her marriage to Sotto had already been deteriorating while she was working on a film in the mid-1980s. She described struggling to separate her real heartbreak from the emotions required by her acting role.
She also said then that moving forward became easier when she stopped focusing only on the pain and began asking what lessons she could take from it.
DINA: REJECTION DOES NOT DEFINE YOU
More than four decades after the marriage ended, Bonnevie now talks about rejection less as a humiliation and more as an experience people must learn to separate from their identity.
Her message was straightforward: being rejected does not mean a person is worthless.
Rejection, she said, is something that happened—it should not become the definition of who someone is.
For Bonnevie, acceptance became essential.
She explained that constantly denying rejection can trap someone in a cycle of feeling like a victim, while accepting what happened makes it possible to begin moving forward.
Instead of repeatedly asking why one particular door will not open, she suggested considering the possibility that another direction may be better.
That philosophy appears to reflect the way Bonnevie eventually processed her own past.
SHE LATER FORGAVE VIC SOTTO
Bonnevie has previously spoken publicly about eventually making peace with Sotto.
In a 2024 account covered by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Bonnevie recalled reaching a point when she decided she needed to forgive both Sotto and actress Coney Reyes, with whom she once had a painful falling-out.
Bonnevie said the process was not only about forgiving other people—it was also about forgiving herself and choosing a fresh beginning.
Years earlier, she similarly said there was no longer “bad blood” between her and Sotto.
Philstar reported in 2022 that Bonnevie described herself and her former husband as friends, while GMA Entertainment has documented her cordial relationship with Sotto’s wife, Pauleen Luna, whom Bonnevie praised for helping maintain strong ties between Vic and his children.
The former spouses have also continued to share important family moments involving Danica and Oyo.
HER SECOND GREAT LOSS CAME DECADES LATER
Bonnevie eventually found love again with politician Deogracias Victor “DV” Savellano, whom she married on March 28, 2012.
Savellano, a former Ilocos Sur representative who later served as an Agriculture undersecretary, died on January 7, 2025, at age 65.
GMA News and Inquirer reported that the cause was an abdominal aneurysm, based on information Bonnevie relayed through television host Boy Abunda.
The loss devastated the actress.
Later that month, Bonnevie described witnessing her husband’s final moments as one of the most painful and traumatic experiences of her life.
Yet her latest reflections suggest that the lessons she learned from her first major heartbreak—acceptance, faith, perseverance and rebuilding—have remained central to the way she faces loss decades later.
FAITH BECAME PART OF HER RECOVERY
Bonnevie said another major change following the failure of her first marriage was her growing reliance on faith.
She learned, she said, that she could depend on herself while also trusting that God might have a different plan for her life.
That belief prevented her from treating the end of her marriage as the end of her future.
Instead, she continued working, raising Danica and Oyo, and developing a career that has now lasted for decades.
Today, those children have families and careers of their own.
Bonnevie remains closely involved with them, and the family now appears together through House of D, the online show she developed with Danica, Oyo and their spouses.
What began as one of the most painful periods of Bonnevie’s life therefore became something much larger than a breakup story.
For the veteran actress, surviving rejection meant deciding that someone else’s decision to leave could hurt her—but it did not have to determine what happened next.
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