Lesbian Daughter of Hong Kong Billionaire 'Moved' by Father's Homophobic Marriage Bounty: 'I Am Lucky to Have Such a Loving Daddy'
After her extremely wealthy father put out a call-to-action soliciting marriage proposals on her behalf, Gigi Chao said her inbox has been flooded with hundreds of date requests from men who "had obviously done their research."
"Some of them are quite poetic," she said of the unwelcome suitors who have been asked by her property magnate dad Cecil Chao to persuade her to leave her longtime same-sex partner, Sean Eav, to whom she was recently married.
Despite the intrusive nature of her father's "marriage bounty," Chao, who is an executive director at her dad's firm, told the Daily Telegraph she is not mad at all.
"At first I was entertained by it, and then that entertainment turned into the realisation and conviction that I am a really lucky girl to have such a loving daddy," she said. "It's really sweet of him to do something like this as an expression of his fatherly love."
Though she says she was "very touched and very moved" by the announcement, Chao concedes that 1,500 emails in one day — some of which contained nude photos — are a bit much.
And, anyway, prospective wooers are wasting their time. "I'm very happy when I'm with her," Chao says of Eav, whom she met through her model management and PR firm.
As for her father, Chao insists he's not a bad guy.
"It's not that he can't accept me," she told the Telegraph. "It's that he can't accept how society would view me and the status that it would incur. Marriage is still a form of social status. I do understand him. I understand why he's doing this."