Celebrities usually baulk when reporters grill them after they are caught smooching and hugging women who are not their wives or partners.
Not Taiwanese actor-singer Michael Huang Chung-kun, 58 – he does not bat an eyelid when the local media ask him about his alleged dalliance with two women which was caught on camera last year.
Answering matter-of-factly, he says: “The aunties pictured are my super fans. I was giving them a treat after my concert in Taichung. We were all in a good mood that day and got drunk. Honestly, I can’t remember what happened.
“Who knows maybe the women were the ones who forced kisses on me. The two aunties called me the next day and we had a good laugh about it.”
He was in town recently to promote a concert here on Aug 28, where he will be performing alongside fellow Taiwanese singers Yu Tai-yan, Chiu Hai-cheng and Lin Hui-ping.
The paparazzi incident appears to have done no harm to his marriage, since his celebrity yoga instructor wife Lulu, 41, and their son I Le, eight, tagged along on this trip.
How did his wife react to his drunken stupor? Huang says half in jest: “She told me to shut my mouth tighter in future.”
The couple have forged a trusting relationship. He says: “My wife can tell what kind of person I am from my daily actions. I wake up at 6am to send our son to school and then pick him up every day. Where will I find the time to stray?”
The hunkle made his debut as a singer in the 1980s, scoring hits such as ballad How Much Of Love Can Be Repeated and Remember Me. A pin-up star, he even posed nude for a lads’ magazine at the age of 40.
“I was the only male to grace their cover. I heard that I was the No. 1 fantasy of gay men that year.
“I felt honoured to be on the cover of the lads’ magazine that most boys grew up reading surreptitiously. I never imagined that one day someone would pay me to pose in the nude and grace the cover,” says Huang, who adds that people these days call him the Richard Gere of Taiwan.
He is mostly an actor now, with TV drama roles ranging from a noodle seller in Story Of Time (2008) to a gangster in Monga Woman (2014).
Outside of filming and family commitments, he spends his free time in his personal sanctuary – a forest in Taipei that he owns.
“I love nature. So I bought a piece of land when I made some money. I built a wooden house in the middle of the forest. I can do whatever I want there. I sometimes invite my friends over. It’s my secret garden,” says Huang, who also has a 25-year-old actor son, Sean, from a previous marriage.
Now that he is older, his exercise regimen is no longer what it used to be, although he says he still has six-pack abs.
“I used to do 900 sit-ups and 300 push-ups a day. These days, I’ve reduced them to 450 sit-ups and 150 push-ups. I think I’m getting old. I shouldn’t push myself too hard. Previously, I would push myself. I want to lead a carefree life.”
BOOK IT /MY SONGS
WHERE: Resorts World Theatre, Resorts World Sentosa, 8 Sentosa Gateway
WHEN: Aug 28, 7.30pm
ADMISSION: $38 to $148 from Sistic (go to www.sistic.com.sg or call 6348-5555
This article was first published on Aug 10, 2016.
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