Netflix’s Bling Empire producer and star Kelly Mi Li on being a self-made crazy rich Asian and helping viewers escape ‘unpleasant times’

Li is a self-made entrepreneur and grateful for it’, saying: ‘Sometimes, when you are born really wealthy, you don’t see a lot of the other side of the world’

‘We’re in a dark period and these are unpleasant times,’ says the Los Angeleno, who is hopeful the show and its characters will ‘give people a sense of escape’

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Kim Lee (left) and Christine Chiu in an episode of Bling Empire – a Netflix show which follows a real-life group of moneyed Asians around LA. Photo: Netflix

Published: 8:15pm, 13 Jan 2021Updated: 8:41pm, 13 Jan 2021

Soon after Kelly Mi Li read the 2013 Kevin Kwan book Crazy Rich Asians, she had a conversation with Jeff Jenkins, executive producer of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Surely, thought Li, there’s a reality show in here?

Fast forward eight years – and two years after the US$240 million grossing Crazy Rich Asians film – and a real-life group of moneyed Asians is about to have their moment in the limelight.

On January 15, Netflix will unveil its newest reality series, Bling Empire, which features Li – a self-made entrepreneur – and her super-rich friends as they cavort around Beverly Hills, California. Based on the trailer, there are all the tropes of a series predicated on the wealthy and their habits – shopping sprees, private jets, lavish dinner parties – although Li hints that, as the series unfolds, more complex secrets will be revealed.

It is the first reality-TV show with an all-Asian cast; Li was born in Kunming, China, and her friends in Bling Empire include Singaporean heir Kane Lim, part-Japanese socialite Anna Shay, haute couture collector and philanthropist Christine Chiu, and French-Vietnamese DJ and model Kim Lee.

Kelly Mi Li is a producer and one of the stars of Bling Empire.

Filming wrapped a few months before Covid-19 hit, and Li said that part of the charm of the show is that the group she is shown romping around Los Angeles with are all friends.