Hong Kong tycoon withdraws his offer of $HK1 billion to any suitor who would woo and marry his lesbian daughter, Gigi Chao
Hong Kong property tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-tsung has reportedly withdrawn his offer of $HK1 billion to any suitor who would woo and marry his lesbian daughter, Gigi Chao, after she penned an open letter to her father pleading with him to accept her wife.
Last week, the ongoing public exchange between Chao and his daughter once again blew up in headlines when he doubled a previously set "dowry" of HK$500 to $HK1 billion in effort to find a husband for his daughter.
Gigi said that her father's persistence in finding her a husband has not harmed her relationship with him, but the highly publicized bids have made her partner, Sean Eav, "distraught". Although Gigi defended her relationship with him to media, she also took to the press to issue an open letter to her father asking him to
respect her relationship with her wife.
"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," she said in the letter.
Of her partner of nine years she wrote, "Now, 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."
Chao, 77, said in reports that he is still unable to embrace his daughter's love life.
“If Gigi's said that this is what she chooses, then it's all over," he told CNN.
"I can't say I am happy with her choice," he said. "If this is her choice then it's for her."
He also said that he would not be welcoming Eav into the family. “I have no intention of mixing my life with her life. But if this is what [Gigi] wants, then I respect her choice."
Chao told reporters that he was taking the bid off the table "for the time being," according to CNN.
When asked what he meant by that, Chao explained, "Until she changes her mind."
