Some tongues kept on wagging, suspecting that GMA 7 actor Mark Herras sells “meat” every time he performs at a gay bar — which he has done at least twice. Actually, he doesn’t sell his “meat.” He doesn’t disrobe anywhere in the gay bar — not even in a VIP room there. He always dances fully clothed. No meat selling really.
Recently though, the Kapuso network’s first grand male winner of their star search reality show Starstruck in 2003 has begun to sell meat. Not his own but those of animals. They are very edible meat.
Herras is now a franchise owner of Farmer’s Premium Meat Shop at UN Avenue in Malate, Manila. He made that revelation on the 3 October episode of the Department of Trade and Industry program Asenso Pilipino on the YouTube channel DTI Philippines.
Owning and running the meat shop is Herras’ main livelihood now to support his wife and two kids and other family members. He stresses, though, that he is still a GMA Network talent even as he is rarely given an assignment. He still accepts dance engagements, though he has yet to make it clear if those bookings pass through GMA management or the deals are signed up with him alone.
The actor-dancer was last seen on a Kapuso series in 2024, particularly in Abot-Kamay na Pangarap, topbilled by young actress Jillian Ward.
For sometime now, Herras has stopped borrowing money from friends when his showbiz earnings were not enough — not even for the infant formula of toddlers. His own then-manager, the late Lolit Solis, once exposed his habitual “pangungutang (money-borrowing)” if only to pressure Herras to attend GMA 7 events so the network’s exhibits may remember to cast him if not as a lead actor, then at least as a mainstay with a sustained talent fees for months, if not years.
To cushion his embarrassment, Herras bluntly denied Solis’ exposes. He said his manager was just making up stories to give him some kind of publicity which was part of her job, after all. (Solis’ other talent, Paolo Contis, once blurted out a similar remark.)
Herras was actually the meat shop’s endorser before he decided to be an investor. Herras disclosed in Filipino/Tagalog: “I had to attend meetings and events that had to do with selling franchises for the meat shop. The next thing I knew, I myself got convinced that I can earn well from owning a franchise and running a meat shop myself.”
The person who signed him up to be an endorser of the meat shop was someone he met in one of his provincial bookings for his solo dance engagements. The meat shop is owned by a company that owns a huge animal farm in Pangasinan where the meat shop has two branches.
The actor-dancer very happily shares that his not having finished college does not prevent him from understanding principles and practices of running a meat shop. He now even feels that he will eventually be able to own more than just one or two franchised branches of the meat shop.
It has not been announced how many franchise branches the meatshop has. But wherever Solis happens to be now in the life hereafter, she might be well-pleased that her Mark is doing well and do not bother anyone anymore to borrow money.