Tycoon Upsets Gay Daughter By Offering $120 Million to Any Man Who Marries Her

Dad refuses to stop embarrassing his daughter even though she's been in a nine-year relationship with her girlfriend

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Bobby Yip / Reuters

Gigi Chao, the daughter of Hong Kong property tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-tsung, reacts while reading marriage proposal emails at her office in Hong Kong Sept. 27, 2012.

A Hong Kong property tycoon has doubled the dowry for any man who marries his lesbian daughter. The sum now stands at a cool $120 million.

Cecil Chao Sze-tsung told Malaysian newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau on Monday that he has not finished trying to arrange a straight match for openly gay Gigi Chao, 33. The last time he made the offer of a reward — then a mere $60 million — 20,000 suitors applied.

“I don’t want to interfere with my daughter’s private life,” said Cecil, not too convincingly. “I only hope for her to have a good marriage and children as well as inherit my business.”

News of the offer has left Sean Eav, Gigi Chao’s partner for nine years, “distraught,” reports the the South China Morning Post. Gigi Chao has spoken of the couple’s anguish at her father’s behavior and told the Post that she has repeatedly asked him to stop offering the bounty.

Gigi Chao is a highly respected LGBT activist in Hong Kong and a founding member of the local gay rights group Big Love Alliance.

[SCMP]