A heartfelt open letter has been issued by the lesbian daughter of a Hong Kong tycoon, who offered more than $100 million to find her a male suitor, urging him to accept her sexuality, Agence France-Presse reported.
In the letter, which starts "Dear Daddy", socialite Gigi Chao asked her father Cecil to treat her partner Sean Eav as "a normal, dignified human being."
Reported to have married in 2012 in France, the pair have been together for nine years, AFP reported.
"I know it's difficult for you to understand how I could feel romantically attracted to a woman; I suppose I can't really explain it either. It just happens, peacefully and gently," she wrote in the letter, which was published in the South China Morning Post on Wednesday and circulated to other Hong Kong media.
After an initial offer of HK$500 million two years ago, 77-year-old Chao, who refuses to recognize that his daughter is a lesbian, was reported last week to have doubled the "marriage bounty" on his daughter to HK$1 billion ($130 million).
According to AFP, the first sum attracted 20,000 candidates, with the bizarre dowry attempt making international headlines.
Gigi, 33, said in her letter that she forgave her father because he was acting in her best interests. And she took responsibility for "misleading" him into thinking there might be other options for her.
"I'm sorry to mislead you to think I was only in a lesbian relationship because there was a shortage of good, suitable men in Hong Kong. There are plenty of good men. They are just not for me," she said.
She expressed her sadness of him not being unable to take part in the life she had made for herself, AFP reported.
"My regret is that you have no idea how happy I am with my life, and there are aspects of my life that you don't share."
Chao, who owns publicly listed property developer Cheuk Nang, is a fixture of Hong Kong high society and regularly appears at public events with his latest young girlfriend. He reportedly once claimed to have slept with 10,000 women, AFP reported.
Following the publication of the open letter to her father, Chao went even further saying that she will enter a straight marriage, when her father enters a gay one.
"Since Dad thinks it's so easy for me to switch from gay to straight, I should just leave it for him to demonstrate. I think I'll marry a man when he marries a man," she told the Times.
British movie maker Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly working on a film based on the story, AFP reported.
