Singapore ― Singaporean actress Chantalle Ng is the sixth guest on Quan Yi Fong’s talk show Hear U Out. Ng opened up about her estranged relationship with her father, former actor Huang Yiliang during the talk show.
Ng is also the daughter of veteran actress Lin Meijiao, and she has come into her own role as the loveable Mai Phuong Thao in Channel 8 series My Star Bride.Â
According to the 25-year-old, much of her childhood unhappiness stemmed from her father.
Ng remained calm as she discussed her childhood experiences with Quan despite it being a sensitive subject for Ng. Ng said that her parents broke up before she turned one year old. Her mother gained custody over her, and she visited her father every Sunday.
“I feel that my father leans on the fiercer side, and perhaps his way of showing affection in a way that a child would find it hard to accept,” she said.
According to Mothership.sg, Ng shared that she had not been in contact with her father since Primary 5, at the age of 11. She acknowledged the positive memories they shared when Huang brought her to engage in sports such as swimming, golf, and badminton, all of which he had taught her.
“It’s just that sometimes, his temper can be volatile, and I would not know when he would become angry.”
Eventually, Ng asked her mother if she could stop seeing her father, as she would become very anxious the day before she saw him. Ng’s mother brought her to meet a social worker, with whom Ng shared why she felt uncomfortable around her father and did not want to see him.
Ng revealed that when she was in Primary 5, a major incident happened that made the news then. The actress believes that her father may have been under a lot of stress at the time, which coincided with the approach of the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). He then arranged for Ng to be coached by numerous tutors.
“Perhaps he was eager to see his daughter excel, and perhaps he received some negative feedback from the tutor about my academic performance at that time, which made him angry. When he arrived at my home, he lost control, and it ended up becoming a police case.”
Ng explained that she was allegedly beaten by him to the extent that she “had to be hospitalised for about a week.”
Ng said that her father almost wanted to hit her mother when the latter tried to stop him, causing Ng to shout at him not to hit her mother.
Seeing that Ng was still underage then, there weren’t any more news reports after that, as she believed the judge decided to protect her identity.
Ng admitted that she has always been afraid of Huang since young, as she knew he could be easily provoked to demonstrate violent tendencies.
Ng had to testify in court as it had become a police case. Dabbing at her tears, she recounted how her mother decided to drop the case after seeing how stressed and terrified she was around Huang.
According to the Mediacorp artiste, many elders told her to forgive him as he is still her father after all. Because of that, she felt guilty during her secondary school days and tried to reconcile with him.
Nevertheless, after meeting her father once or twice, she was still terrified of him, so she continued avoiding him.
“Even until now, I’m 25 years old, I’m still not ready.”
When the subject of discussion turned to her mother, Ng’s face immediately lit up, as she is fond of her mother.
Ng added that her determination to be outstanding stemmed from the naysayers who questioned her mother’s parenting methods, including her father, who insisted that such parenting methods would not work.
“I want to prove to those who doubted my mother and that her parenting methods could nurture a very good child,” she said. /TISG