KC Montero (right) with Pupil's Ely Buendia at the U92 launch (photo by Jasper Lucena)

"To all our friends in the media, this is the only time I’ll answer the rumors about me,” a somber KC Montero says on stage. “All the things you’ve been hearing about me… yes, it’s true,” he says. “I do work for U92!”

Montero, ever the jokester and one who doesn’t really enjoy press questions about his personal life, opted to play his situation for laughs. He’s recently been in the news when it was reported that he had separated from Geneva Cruz—his wife of six years and, according to him, still his friend.

“No showbiz questions,” he eyed me suspiciously.

But even as he reiterated to me his hate for showbiz questions, his sense of humor made it easy for him to joke about it on stage at the U92 launch.

U92 is a new and hip radio station whose bevy of “beautiful people” DJs, aside from Montero, include Sarah Meier, Vicky Herrera, former MTV VJ Sib, rocker Marc Abaya and many others—radio personalities all making true the station’s tagline: “Cool to be U.” Or the description on its calendar giveaways, “Radio never looked and sounded this good.”

Montero, a former MTV VJ, admits this is his first time to work on radio. “Funny thing is,” he adds, “I come to the radio station dressed as I would when I worked in MTV.” This means, he comes to work in t-shirts and jeans, or even shorts on particularly laidback days.

While Montero has developed an aversion to anything showbiz, his new show—which began on March 1, when the station moved its office to the Silver City in Pasig—mostly features OPM music, interviews, and stuff on local showbiz.

Naturally, we called him on it. Showbiz, we eyed him? “Yeah, but it’s very superficial,” he defends himself. “It’s like a top 10 report; I don’t really go into it… I just give my two cents’ worth.”

Montero admits he is still getting the hang of radio. On stage, he again joked about his 1-4 p.m. weekdays show. “It’s got a very creative title,” he deadpans. “I took me all of three weeks to come up with it.” His show is called “The KC Show.”

This new show has an open door policy—meaning, some guests could actually just show up, chat and hang out with the quick-witted host.

“You know, since I’ve done TV, people said [radio] should be easy,” he reveals, “But it’s not true.” Montero is the physical type, whose jokes and jabs on TV made more impact with a gesture or a funny (if deadpan) face. But he says that, while he isn’t DJ Mo [Twister], he accepted the job, “to shake things up a bit.”