$130M to Make My Daughter Straight, Says Buffoon Tycoon

Winnie McCroy READ TIME: 2 MIN.

A Hong Kong billionaire has doubled his original offer of $65M to any man who can woo and win his lesbian daughter into marriage, despite the fact that she already married her female partner in France, as reported in an earlier EDGE story.

According to a recent article in the South China Morning Post, the 76-year-old real estate tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-Tsung had originally drawn more than 20,000 unsuccessful suitors with his dowry of $65M. He has now promised $130M to anyone man who can change his daughter's thinking, saying, "I only hope for her to have a good marriage and children as well as inherit my business."

"I don't think my dad's offering of any amount of money would be able to attract a man I would find attractive," said 33-year-old Gigi Chao. "Alternatively, I would be happy to befriend any man willing to donate huge amounts of money to my charity, Faith in Love, provided they don't mind that I already have a wife. Third and lastly, thank you Daddy, I love you too."

Gigi serves an executive director at her father's Cheuk Nang property development company. She is also the founder and chair of the Faith in Love Foundation, working to end poverty, and is a founding member of the gay rights group Big Love Alliance.

While her father's offer has made Gigi's partner of nine years, Sean Eav, "distraught," Gigi said that she understands her father's persistence, that he is from "another time," and that although the two "disagree on what marriage is and family is," she views his "dowry" offer as "an expression of his fatherly love."

Chao told the Financial Times in January 2013 that he would provide any successful suitor with "a moderately deluxe life," adding that he would not force his daughter to marry a man.


by Winnie McCroy , EDGE Editor

Winnie McCroy is the Women on the EDGE Editor, HIV/Health Editor, and Assistant Entertainment Editor for EDGE Media Network, handling all women's news, HIV health stories and theater reviews throughout the U.S. She has contributed to other publications, including The Village Voice, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and The Advocate, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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