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SCMP Reporter

After more than two decades of speculation, Andy Lau Tak-wah set the record straight and admitted he had married his long-time girlfriend Carol Chu.
Speaking to reporters after returning to Hong Kong from Beijing on September 1, Lau also revealed he had previously married actress-model Yue Hoh-yan.
'I lied and I have disappointed many people. I want to apologise to those who trusted me. I'm a public figure, and I have to be responsible for my behaviour,' he said. Admitting he had made a mistake, the Canto-pop star said  he would have to do better in the future.
Lau denied he was married in a February interview but journalists uncovered marriage records in the United States that showed he had married 47-year-old Chu in Las Vegas in June last year.
In a short message on his website, he wrote: 'I was afraid that if I announced the marriage, [Chu] would be stalked by reporters, so I made a selfish decision ...  I made things more complicated.'
It would seem Lau's concerns are not unfounded, with one crazed fan selling off her family's Sichuan  house to pay for a trip to meet him in 2007.
Critics accuse Lau of hiding the marriage purposely to protect his image as one of Asia's biggest entertainment idols, with more than 180 films, concerts and television appearances under his belt. Along  with a record 292 singing awards, Lau is regarded  as the undisputed king of Canto-pop.
According Yong Mee-yian, general manager of talent search and image consultant company Starz People, hiding your marital status or intimate relationships is part and parcel of packaging entertainment figures to the public.
'You life has to match your persona or public image,' she said.
She said artists with wholesome personas shouldn't go out late at night, and should keep good company to avoid bad publicity.
'If you are a male or female star, the fan base has this concept of you and giving the impression you're available feeds their fantasy and reasons for idolising you,' she said.
Yong added the level of control at  certain talent and entertainment agencies could be very strict,  including restrictions on what the stars ate, who they saw and where they went.
Professor Anthony Fung Ying-him of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's School of Journalism and Communication said despite the fact that Lau is a long-established star and  he's probably in total control of his own image and branding, the entire  episode revolving around his marriage was more the fault of the entertainment industry than his own.
'The entertainment industry follows a very strict commercial formula in that it tries to discourage artists or singers  from getting married or making public other significant facts,' he said.
'The belief is that the audience would like an idol who is not married, and therefore the idol can be a target for fans to pursue or to imagine him or her as a future husband or wife.'
Fung said the entire system would not allow Lau to release the truth, adding that this has been a problem within the entertainment industry since the 1970s.
But he said a new generation of consumers was changing trends.
They are more focused on quality than fantasy today,  Fung said. 
'Popular artists like Faye Wong and Kay Tse got pregnant during their careers while Eason Chan, who writes his own music, got married without any major hit to his fan base,' he said.
Fung said present-day fans preferred  honest artists who wrote their own songs, adding that the Lau fiasco had also led other stars such as Leon Lai to come clean about their marital status.
Even though celebrities have a responsibility as role models, Lau put his family's privacy first.  
'The public hold local celebrities in high regard, but at the same time, they are the ones supporting these invasions into their private lives by buying the gossip magazines,' Fung said.



Hiding the truth in the name of privacy