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updated 31 Dec 2012, 21:28
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Fri, Jun 17, 2011
The New Paper
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Is Christy piling it on over marriage woes?
by Kwok Kar Peng

HER face looks chubby and there are wrinkles below her puffy eyes.

Hard to believe, but that's really Christy Chung in the photos.

Paparazzi shots of the actress, whose name is synonymous with "sexy siren" and "femme fatale", show her looking dreadfully haggard during a recent trip to Hong Kong.

Chung, 40, who had her hair tied up in a ponytail in the pictures, was chomping on a sandwich while shopping at a mall.

The photos are a far cry from the glamorous image the Canadian-born actress presented when she was in town just last month for Singapore designer Francis Cheong's Spring/Summer 2011 Couture show at the Audi Fashion Festival.

The pictures have led to speculation that Chung could be depressed because of marital problems.

She is married to Chinese music producer and aspiring musician Jon Yen, 42.

The couple have two daughters - Jayden, 3, and Cayla, 1. Chung has another daughter, Yasmine, 13, from an earlier marriage.

According to reports, the couple's marriage has been rocky for some time.

Yen reportedly wants a son. Frustrated that they have been unable to have one, he is alleged to have reverted to his flirtatious ways, often dumping Chung and their daughters at home to go skirt-chasing around town.

Chung, who was spotted during her recent Hong Kong trip without her wedding ring, was alleged to have quarrelled repeatedly with Yen over the matter.

A Chinese newspaper report quoted an unnamed friend of Chung's as saying that the star's mother never approved of Yen.

"It's because Christy has always been the one to pay for everything. Even the diamond ring that Jon proposed to her with was paid for by Christy," the friend reportedly said.

"Jon likes to sing, so she came out with money to invest in a music studio in Beijing, but no album has been produced.

"It has been really tough on Christy. She has to support her father, mother and her three daughters," the friend added.

In another report, another unnamed source said Chung believed that as long as she loved her husband and her daughters wholeheartedly, happiness would follow.

Said the source, who claimed to be an insider: "It didn't matter to Christy that she had to film the movie Bruce Lee My Brother so soon after giving birth to Cayla, or that she had to take up a lot of modelling jobs after that.

"It never occurred to her that after working so hard for the family, things would end up like this."

Yen also reportedly leaves Beijing frequently to work in Taiwan, so the couple rarely see each other.

Hong Kong and Chinese media have picked up so-called "telling signs" from Chung's Weibo (popular microblogging website in China) account.

She has uploaded many photos of herself with her daughters, but rarely posts about Yen.

Similarly, his postings are of himself in the gym or with his guitars, but seldom of his wife and the girls.

Chung's recent online musings also seem unhappy. In one Weibo post, she wrote: "The saddest thing in the world is when you are deeply in love with someone, yet your heart clearly knows that he can never give you..."

In another post, she wrote: "If a man truly loves you, he won't tell you that he's very busy. He will say that being with you is more important.

"(I) don't want to be a woman who needs a man, but to be a woman that a man needs the most."

Chung, a former beauty queen, has been regarded as a sex bomb since she stumbled into the Hong Kong movie industry in the early 1990s.

She starred in movies like All's Well, Ends Well 1997 and The Bodyguard from Beijing, but is most remembered for her sexy role in the Thai film Jan Dara, in which she seduces her 17-year-old stepson.

Career comeback

Last year, after a six-year break, she made her career comeback in the movie Bruce Lee My Brother, playing Grace Ho, the legendary martial arts star's mother.

Chung is known for shunning plastic surgery, opting instead for collagen products.

The actress is also known for her public battle with weight.

Rather than battling post-pregnancy weight in silence, Chung capitalised on it.

While pregnant with daughter Yasmine from her first marriage in 1998, for example, she piled on so much weight that the Hong Kong media declared her career over.

But slimming company Marie France wrapped her up, sent her for their treatments and revived Chung's career.

Though her first marriage ended in 2002, Chung has sustained a long-term relationship with beauty chain Marie France Bodyline.

She has been their ambassador for 13 years and receives a six-figure annual pay cheque from the company.

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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