Meet Mulan and Aladdin star Lea Salonga’s trans son Nic Chien: at 19, he’s following his mum into musical theatre and will appear alongside Salonga in Into the Woods
Salonga, who’s been consistently supportive of Chien’s journey, had originally wanted to raise her child in her native Philippines where ‘people hold on to their childhood for so much longer’
Meanwhile, Salonga – who provided the singing voice for Jasmine in the original Aladdin (1992), and for the titular character in Mulan (1998) and Mulan II (2004) – is back on Broadway with Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends. The revue features several numbers dedicated to the late musical theatre icon, but the Miss Saigon star has made one her own. “Loving You”, she says, reminds her of her son, and she dresses in a purple jacket for the performance as a nod to Nic’s favourite colour.
So what else do we know about Lea Salonga’s son, Nic Chien?
Lea Salonga originally wanted to raise him in the Philippines
Salonga originally wanted to raise her child in her home country of the Philippines, as she explained in a 2007 interview with GMA News. “There’s just our fear that [he’ll] be growing up too fast,” she said. “I think here [in the Philippines], people hold on to their childhood for so much longer, it seems. And I’d like for [Nic] to be a kid at least for as long as I was,” she added. Nic attended high school in New York, per People.
Nic Chien has always loved performing
Salonga revealed to GMA News in 2008 that Nic had taken to performing from a very young age. At less than two years old, he was already singing and dancing like a “star”, shared the proud mum. By the age of five, he was taking part in school performances. In 2014, Nic sang during his mum’s Playlist concert in Manila, per the Philippine Daily Inquirer.