The Chinese billionaire who offered nearly $70 million to any man who could turn his lesbian daughter straight has now doubled his proposed “dowry.”
Time reports that 77-year-old Cecil Chao raised the prize to almost $135 million after thousands of men reportedly failed to convince his daughter, Gigi, to marry them.
The Hong Kong property development tycoon insists that 34-year-old Gigi is “still single” even though she married her longtime partner two years ago.
Chao told a
Malaysian newspaper that 20,000 men displayed interest in his previous offer, which he made so his daughter could have “a good marriage and children.”
In response to the raise, Gigi Chao told the South China Morning Post that although her wife is “distraught” from her father’s efforts, she is willing to comply with the terms as long as the man she chooses donates a large portion of the prize money to charity and of course has no desire to actually begin a romantic relationship with her.
“I don’t think my dad’s offering of any amount of money would be able to attract a man I would find attractive,” she said.
“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.”
Cecil Chao told ABC News in October of 2012 that while he doesn’t object to homosexuality, he views it as a phase his daughter may grow out of in the not-so-distant future.
“I’m not saying that she’s not okay to be gay,” he said.
“I mean it’s her own choice and her own tendency, but she should make sure she knows what she wants. Maybe what she wants today is different [than] what she wants in the future.”
Gigi married her partner, Sean, in Paris in early 2012, but it wasn’t until news of the marriage was printed in Hong Kong tabloids that her father announced his offer.
She said her father was “surprised and unpleasantly shocked” at the news and urged her not to further publicize the wedding.
Gigi told the South China Morning Post that the offers came pouring in from all over the world after her father made the initial challenge.
“War veterans from the US, someone from Ethiopia, from Istanbul, South America, Portugal, really just from all over the world,” Ms Chao said.
“One American suitor wrote: ‘I’m interested in the offer. I am a male person, who also happens to be gay.’ “
Gigi, an executive director at her father’s company, part-time pilot and founder of anti-poverty charity Faith in Love, has repeatedly said that she knows her father has embarked on his quest not out of hate or disrespect but out of love and concern for the future of his family name.
“I understand that he loves me, it’s just he’s from another time and it’s difficult for him to understand the plight of the LGBT,” she said.
“At the office it’s business as usual. At family gatherings we hug and dance. And we just agree to disagree on what marriage is and family is.”
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