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Leung Chai-yan has made headlines over the past year. Photo: SCMP Pictures

CY Leung’s daughter Chai-yan ‘lays her heart bare’ in first television interview

Leung Chai-yan promises to tell all about her relationship with her father when the she makes her first television appearance tonight in the first instalment of a seven-part interview on Cable TV.

Leung Chai-yan, the eldest daughter of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, promises to tell all about her relationship with her father when the she makes her first television appearance tonight in the first instalment of a seven-part interview on Cable TV.

The 23-year-old will “lay her heart bare” according to a preview of the interview, which airs over seven nights on entertainment news programme .

That relationship has come under the spotlight in recent weeks as Chai-yan, a law student at the London School of Economics, admitted she had suffered from depression and was “pretty familiar with the insides of a London ambulance”.

“People say that a major cause of depression comes from introverted anger. That’s why people cut themselves, because it’s an expression of anger and pain,” she told .

Chai-yan gave her first television interview to Cable TV show CEN. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Chai-yan made headlines last June when she posted photos on her Facebook page showing cuts to her wrist and asked: “Will I bleed to death?” Her photos and comments were widely covered in the media. The chief executive and his wife then flew to London to visit her.

“If I could have a heart-to-heart with my parents, I would say that I want to feel loved. Not just be loved, but loved. There’s a difference,” she said.

Chai-yan told Chinese language magazine that the incident in London was the first time she had ever hurt herself.

“That was when I was at the lowest point in my life. There were a lot of problems to deal with. I wanted to do something to attract my parents’ attention,” she said.

She also said the real her was “not that simple and innocent”, and was more of a rebel and self-willed.

She elaborates on that rebel persona in a media preview of the interview released on Wednesday, when asked about the labels “material girl” and “Kong girl” given to her by the local press.

“I have many extravagant friends of ‘the rich second generation’,” she said. “When I was young, they would hold very extravagant birthday parties. But my father never let me join them.”

When host Natalie Mitchell asked about her relationship with parents, she said: “I sometimes squabble with them. Maybe I’m more westernised but they were very traditional. That’s why sometimes we held different opinions. Actually I’m very filial to them at the bottom of my heart.”

She added that she was a warm-hearted person, contrary to her cool reputation.

READ MORE: My dad is ‘the most competent man I’ve ever met’, says CY Leung’s daughter

Chai-yan caused a firestorm online last year after saying that the stabbing of a local newspaper editor was not an attack on press freedom and, in another case, bragging that she “used taxpayers’ money” to fund her shopping sprees.

And she caused ripples again last week when she described the beleaguered chief executive as “the most competent man she has ever met”.

“I have never met any other man in my life that is as competent, as hard working and self-disciplined as my father,” she told East Week.

“But for me, his life is too structured,” she added. “I feel he is just like a robot.”

Chai-yan drew a media mob when she appeared in the audience at a fashion show in Wan Chai last Friday, a month after saying she had applied to work as a model when an agency asked if she was interested.

CEN airs at 7pm tonight on Cable TV channel 12 and high-definition channel 212

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