Vietnamese actress Nguyen Thanh Dao on Sunday shocked her fans when she admitted to having lied about her marital status, place of birth and academic record.
At a news conference in Taipei, Nguyen, better known in Taiwan by her stage name Helen Thanh Dao, introduced a Taiwanese man named Tai Fa-kuei (戴發奎) as her husband.
Until now, Nguyen had presented herself as a single, 33-year-old Taiwanese-Vietnamese who was born in Hualien.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
Tai said that Nguyen was born in Vietnam and had married him 18 years ago when she was 22.
It was at his suggestion that she claimed his birth place and his late mother as her own, he said.
Tai said he also made up other parts of Nguyen’s biography, such as claims that she had graduated from the University of California in Los Angeles and before that had attended a prestigious girls’ high school in Taipei.
He did it so that Nguyen “would not be looked down upon,” Tai said, adding that his wife had actually received an economics degree from Hung Vuong University in Vietnam.
Nguyen is an award-winning actress in Vietnam.
She appeared in movies and TV dramas from 2005 to 2009.
However, she was not earning enough money to cover the couple’s expenses, because Tai, who has a doctorate in Materials Science from National Chiao Tung University, had given up his job to support her acting career, he said.
In an effort to help Nguyen maintain a male fan base, Tai said that he had not told anyone that he was her husband and posed as her elder brother.
During public events Tai would stand on the sidelines or sit in the car.
At the start of the news conference, Tai and Nguyen held hands and bowed in apology.
The revelations came a day after police received a report from a friend of Nguyen’s, who said the actress was planning to commit suicide.
Conflicting posts on Nguyen’s Facebook page led media to question aspects of Nguyen’s life, apparently forcing the couple to come forward.
Tai said Nguyen was depressed because her birth mother had been trying to extort money from them and had recently threatened to expose Nguyen’s lies.
The disclosures were greeted with overwhelmingly negative comments online, with hundreds of netizens condemning Nguyen for lying and many saying she should return to Vietnam.
Some also castigated her husband, saying he had gone too far in trying to keep up appearances, and said that despite his claims of financial difficulties, his wife was driving a Porsche.
However, some of the posts expressed sympathy for Nguyen as a migrant who struggled to make a name for herself in the entertainment industry.
Some said Nguyen had shown courage by coming forward and that other celebrities were known to have lied about their marriages and other aspects of their personal lives.
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