http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/entertainment/gurmit-singh-bids-goodbye/1498206.html?cid=FBSG
The 49-year-old has announced that he will not be renewing his full-time contract with MediaCorp when it expires at the end of the year.
It is his way of catching up on time lost with his wife, his 17-year-old daughter, 13-year-old son and 20-month-old baby girl.
“I need to pay them back. If I don’t, I’ll be a horrible father and husband. I kept missing important milestones, such as birthdays and anniversaries... I just couldn’t continue this argument within myself.”
One of his regrets is missing his firstborn’s first steps. “I left the house and the baby was still crawling. I came home late – the baby was walking,” he recounted.
After welcoming a third child last year, he told his wife: “I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made with the other kids”.
But don’t start crying into your yellow wellington boots just yet. Gurmit will still be in the industry part-time.
A statement issued by his management said that for next year, Gurmit will take on artiste engagements on “a more selective basis, with MediaCorp’s Artiste Management unit serving as his exclusive agent for commercial engagements”.
“I wish I could say I was retiring and have a yacht waiting for me. But I still have to work to buy food and clothes and pay the school bills,” he said, adding that the family had moved from their house to a three-bedroom condominium unit – and would no longer fly business class.
“So, there is a lot of rubbish that I’ve dealt with – and to think I did it at the expense of time with my family,” he continued. “It’s time. Life is short. I’m turning 50 next year.”
Does he feel a midlife crisis coming on? “I’m getting very impatient because I feel like my time is running out,” he said with a laugh.
“I grew up in a very poor family – slept on the floor, wore shoes until you could see my toes through the soles, bought extra-big school shorts so they could last for years and get tighter and tighter. I got a new shirt only once a year on Deepavali.
I was thinking, as a 12-year-old, ‘If I can grow up and have my own house and a motorbike, or even any crappy car, I’ve made it.’”
And yet, after having made it, with fame, wealth, success and possibly everything a man could want, Gurmit said nothing is as important as family.
“At the end of the day, I could have X number of houses and cars (but), after all that is stripped away, the only people you’re left with are your family,” he said.
According to Gurmit, his family kept him grounded. “I thank God every day that I have a family to go home to. My children say, ‘You know, Dad, outside you’re a superstar; but here, you’re just a father. You don’t impress me at all.’”
At this point in his life, Gurmit is looking forward to being “just a father”. For the first time in years, you won’t see him co-hosting the live countdown show on the last day of the year.
“Finally, after 20 years, I’ll have the first New Year’s Eve with my family,” he said.
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