Hong Kong socialite Gigi Chao, whose father’s bounty launched a thousand marriage proposals, wrote a poignant letter in which she asked for her father’s acceptance after the property tycoon doubled the dowry for her daughter’s hand.
In 2012, Cecil offered a cool $65 million to any man who could make her lesbian daughter fall in love. He doubled the offer last week despite the fact that Gigi was already married to Sean Eav, her partner of nine years. Cecil had insisted that her daughter was still single.
Gigi decided to write a letter to her tycoon father wherein she pleaded for him to accept her as she is and treat her partner as a “normal dignified human being.”
Opening with “Dear Daddy,” Gigi wrote:
“I’m not asking you to be best of friends; however, it would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal dignified human being.”
“I am proud of my life, and I would not choose to live it any other way … I’m sorry I misled you to think I was only in a lesbian relationship because there was a shortage of good, suitable men in Hong Kong. There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me.”
She also said she was sorry that people had been saying “insensitive things” about her father for the way he treated her daughter.
“The truth is, they don’t understand that I will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests,” she wrote.
“As your daughter, I would want nothing more than to make you happy. But in terms of relationships, your expectations of me and the reality of who I am are not coherent.”
Gigi’s letter was published in at least two Hong Kong newspapers, including the South China Morning Post on Tuesday. She said she hopes the letter would clarify misunderstandings about her father.
Gigi works as an executive director at her father’s Cheuk Nang property development company. She married Sean Eav in a civil ceremony in France in 2012 because Hong Kong laws does not recognize same-sex unions.
By Maesie Bertumen
Image of Gigi Chao, right, and her partner Sean Eav: ideastream.org
