Lesbian Wedding Bounty: Offers Flood In
A gay businesswoman receives thousands of offers from would-be suitors after her father offers a £40m 'wedding bounty'.11:35am UK, Friday 28 September 2012
Gigi Chao, right, with her partner Sean Eav
The tycoon who offered a multi-million dollar bounty to the man who weds his lesbian daughter says he just wants the best for her.
The lesbian daughter of a Hong Kong billionaire has been bombarded with marriage proposals after her father offered £40m to any man who could win her heart.
Gigi Chao, 33, says she has received thousands of offers - and even nude photographs - including one from a man claiming to be Hollywood actor George Clooney's body double.
The attention from would-be suitors from Nigeria to India came after her tycoon father Cecil Chao, 76, offered a HK$500m "wedding bounty" on Wednesday.
Ms Chao, an executive director of her father's company Cheuk Nang, is reported to have had a church blessing with her long-term girlfriend Sean Eav in a ceremony in Paris in April.
But she refuses to confirm or deny the rumours.
Her father has told the South China Morning Post that reports of his daughter's civil ceremony were "false".
Gigi Chao is an executive director of her father's company Cheuk Nang
The British-educated businesswoman says she is not angry with her father for trying to change her mind, and is flattered by the fortune he offered.
"I wasn't angry at all. I was really quite touched, and very, how shall I say, moved by Daddy's announcement. I mean it's really his way of saying: 'Baby girl I love you and you deserve more,'" she added.
"I'm actually really close to my dad and we talk really intimately about our lives and our relationships, and we see each other daily in the office.
"It's obvious that he doesn't accept his daughter being gay. But he doesn't accept it as a social statement - he can accept it as a sort of 'in-the-closet lifestyle choice', but not as a social statement."
Mr Chao, wearing gold sunglasses, gave an interview to TV reporters to explain his actions.
"Everything I did was for the best for Gigi, and we would not do anything against her will. But let her have a good choice of what she really wants," he said.
Earlier, as offers flooded in across the world, Ms Chao wrote on her Facebook page: "For your family's sanity's sake, Daddy please rescind the notice!!!!"
Mr Chao said around 100 would-be suitors had contacted his office.
"People send me letters, emails and faxes. I haven't had time to read them yet. I'll have to discuss it with Gigi," he told the South China Morning Post.
"There are some who said they don't want the money, only the chance to know my daughter."
One of the applicants, a Frenchman, wrote: "I'm really serious and (despite the fact) I am a man I think I can make this woman happy. I'm as soft as a woman."
Another appeared to offer a menage a trois: "I will win his daughter's heart and marry her, and my Maid Marian, a gorgeous Brazilian model, will help accomplish that with me."
Mr Chao regularly appears at public events with his latest young girlfriend. He reportedly once claimed to have had "intimate relations" with 10,000 women.
