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Ian Young
Ian Young

The Hongcouver | Vancouver’s mayor dating Chinese-born pop star Wanting Qu: Not so weird, but worth scrutiny

Couple's relationship isn’t unusual in a city with Canada’s highest rate of mixed-race pairings.

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A screenshot from the Chinese Youku video-sharing site, in which Wanting Qu sings “Happy Birthday” to Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, when he turned 50 in September. Photo: Youku
Ian Youngin Vancouver

Vancouver’s ridiculously photogenic mayor, Gregor Robertson, has a new girlfriend, the mainland-Chinese-born pop star Wanting Qu.

First, some background and a disclaimer: I reckon the relationship is worth scrutiny for at least a couple of non-prurient reasons, not the least of which is that Robertson’s own PR team put his private life front and centre last summer at the start of his re-election campaign. This was ostensibly in response to some pretty wild rumours circulating about the married mayor’s private life which remain unfounded; the excellent reason that they have not been repeated by the mainstream media is that there is no reason to believe that they are true.

But Robertson’s campaign team didn’t have to respond the way they did, with a full-court-press that included the release of a private email from a political opponent to the mayor (CCed to a fellow councillor) that recounted some of the rumours. Now, Vancouver’s mainstream media has its faults - but an over-willingness to poke about the private lives of its politicians is not one of them, and I find it difficult to believe that these rumours would have been printed without the intervention of Robertson’s own people.
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The upshot was that Robertson’s separation from his wife, Amy, was confirmed to the general public in prominent fashion.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and Wanting Qu in an image posted by Qu to social media before their relationship became public knowledge. Photo: Twitter
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and Wanting Qu in an image posted by Qu to social media before their relationship became public knowledge. Photo: Twitter
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Another reason the mayor’s relationship with 31-year-old Qu, who is based in Vancouver, deserves at least some examination is her paid position as the city’s Chinese tourism ambassador. She has also helped develop the mayor’s substantial social media following in China (he has more than 88,000 followers on Weibo; Qu has 1.5 million) in various ways. These included a bikini-clad shout-out to the mayor in August, when Qu undertook the ALS ice-bucket challenge.
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