A $65 million bounty to marry the daughter of a Hong Kong tycoon sounds great, until you find out she’s a lesbian, and her father is trying to change her ways. Most people can agree that no offer is going to change someone. Even so, she’s been flooded by marriage proposals from those seeking to cash in on the reward.
Since Hong Kong property billionaire Cecil Chao, known in the tabloid media for his prolific womanizing, dangled a $65 million reward for any man able to lead his daughter, Gigi Chao, down the aisle, she says she’s been bombarded by marriage proposals from strangers, date requests, and even an offer from a Hollywood film producer to buy her story.
“War veterans from the U.S., someone from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, from Istanbul, South America, Portugal, really just from all over the world,” said Chao, sifting through emails on a white Apple laptop in her father’s high-rise office tower.
One suitor from the United States wrote: “I’m interested in your offer to wed your daughter, who also happens to be gay. I am a male person, who also happens to be gay.”
Another person wrote in and said his brother would marry the daughter, who was a body double to George Clooney in the 2008 sports flick “Leatherheads” film: “He could be the picture perfect date.”
“I’ve tried my best to respond to well-meaning ones … but most of them I just try not to open,” added the frizzy-haired Chao, who was wearing a silver ring after what she called a “church blessing” with her girlfriend in a Paris church.
Gigi said her billionaire dad, who drives a Rolls Royce and flies a helicopter but had a poor early childhood in Shanghai, had been upset when his daughter’s longtime lover revealed the couple had wed in Paris in April, leading to his impromptu $65 million “marriage bounty” offer to any man able to set her straight.
“I wasn’t angry at all. I was really quite touched, very touched and very … how should I say? moved, by Daddy’s announcement,” said the 33-year-old daughter.