Meet Prince Charles’s favourite reality star

…though the chances are you already know Christine Chiu from the hit Netflix series Bling Empire. She tells Caroline Graham how, for all her mansions and private jets, there’s one thing her millions can never buy

Christine wears (previous page): jacket, Gucci; bandeau, Michael Kors; trousers, Dolce & Gabbana. Stylist: Carolina Orrico. Hair: Junya Nakashima. Make-up: Ayami Nishimura. Producer: Christian Meshesha.

Christine wears (previous page): jacket, Gucci; bandeau, Michael Kors; trousers, Dolce & Gabbana. Stylist: Carolina Orrico. Hair: Junya Nakashima. Make-up: Ayami Nishimura. Producer: Christian Meshesha.

Christine Chiu likes a party. So much so that the couture-swathed socialite and millionaire owner of the Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery clinic once shut down the whole of LA’s Rodeo Drive for her own entertainment.

It’s unsurprising, then, that she’s also the breakout star of Netflix’s hit reality series Bling Empire, which, dubbed ‘a gaudy mix of Crazy Rich Asians meets Keeping Up With the Kardashians’, is now back on our screens for a second season.

Happy to be filmed splashing some of her estimated $80 million (£65 million) fortune on houses, private jets and six-figure dresses, she soon became the show’s pantomime villain. Fans loved her plunging necklines and shameless name-dropping so much that it became one of Netflix’s top ten most watched shows in the wake of its premiere in January 2021.

And yet when Christine arrives at LA’s famed Sunset Tower Hotel for our interview, not a single head turns. Unlike her dramatic posturing on Bling Empire, there is no entourage. In fact, she’s so softly spoken that the waitress has to ask her to repeat her order three times.

‘I play a diva on the show but that’s not at all who I am in real life,’ says the 39-year-old mother-of-one. ‘I think most people realise reality TV is heavily scripted and we’re no exception. I’m also the show’s executive producer, so I will often take one for the team to make it more dramatic. But I’m really very shy. This is a means to an end, to tell stories and highlight people you haven’t traditionally seen on TV.’

Still, she has wholeheartedly embraced fame, and the connections that come with it. The most notable name in her address book? That will be Prince Charles, who she has called ‘a really cool guy’.

Christine and husband Dr Chiu with Prince Charles at the opening of their wellness centre, 2019.

Christine and husband Dr Chiu with Prince Charles at the opening of their wellness centre, 2019.

‘I was introduced to Charles and Camilla several years ago through a friend of mine who is extremely philanthropic. We were invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace, which was such a wonderful adventure, and I fell in love not only with their humour – they are incredibly charming – but by how they are blessed beyond description and give so much back.

‘Prince Charles’s eyes light up when he talks about the different projects he undertakes. He and my husband connected through their love of integrating Eastern and Western medicine and, as they discussed various ideas, that’s when they landed on a health and wellness centre in Scotland.’

She is referring to the clinic she and her husband Dr Gabriel Chiu, 54, a renowned plastic surgeon, have sponsored at Dumfries House, the 18th-century Palladian mansion in Ayrshire that is owned by Charles’s charity The Prince’s Foundation. While the clinic, which opened in 2019 and offers a range of complementary therapies, is run by the charity, the Chius plan to spend millions underwriting it over the next decade.

What annoys me is People think I married into money and judge me for that 

Christine is under little illusion that her ultra-privileged life – the $20 million (£16 million) mansion in Bel Air, the $12 million (£9.5 million) pad in Malibu and private-jet jaunts to the Cannes Film Festival – may seem vulgar in a world facing such upheaval and hardship. But, she says, she wants people to ‘see behind the smoke and mirrors’. While her Instagram is filled with glamorous images, including a recent trip to view French chateaus on her hunt for a European holiday home, her life has not been without its own challenges.

On her wedding night in 2006, her mother-in-law stopped by her room and presented Christine, who was then 24, with a family tree featuring a blank space where her future child’s name would go.

Christine, who had married Gabriel after a short romance and didn’t meet her new in-laws – wealthy Chinese-American property developers – until her wedding day, had no idea he was a 24th-generation direct descendent of the imperial Chinese Song dynasty. She says, ‘I didn’t know about his background. He was a bachelor renting a one-bedroom apartment when we met.

‘When my mother-in-law showed me this dynastic lineage book and the hole I was supposed to fill by birthing an heir, I was shocked. I was so young, it didn’t dawn on me until I was specifically told that my sole role was to service my husband and produce an heir.’

With her husband Dr Gabriel Chiu, 54, a renowned plastic surgeon

With her husband Dr Gabriel Chiu, 54, a renowned plastic surgeon

But the much longed-for heir never came. When the couple went for tests, they discovered it was Gabriel who had the fertility issues (something that will be discussed in more detail during the show’s second season), and Christine had to bear that knowledge in ‘secret shame’.

‘It was hard to wake up every morning, especially with something that was out of my control. I felt like a loser, because my worth was based solely on my ability to reproduce.

‘We had so much money to throw at infertility treatments, but for a long time no amount of money made a difference. A lot of women will relate to what I’m saying. It’s not about money, it’s about trying to live up to other people’s expectations. I was successful in my own right but when it came to producing an heir, the blame was put on me when it didn’t happen.

‘With time, technology and medicine improved and we found this amazing Asian female fertility doctor who was determined to break the cycle of shame for me.’ And she did, as in 2018 Christine gave birth to Gabriel Chiu III, or Baby G.

While Baby G is undoubtedly being raised in the lap of luxury – he has his own collection of child-sized sports cars including a Tesla and Ferrari – Christine is determined to give her son the love and stability she lacked growing up, as well as teaching him the importance of giving back.

 Realising my sole role was to produce an heir was shocking

Indeed, Baby G’s childhood is very different from her own. Born to Taiwanese musicians who constantly travelled, she was raised ‘mostly by nannies and occasionally by relatives’ as her parents roamed the world building their careers.

‘I was left back in Taiwan when I was four years old – which is the age my son is now. To be left without parents was very traumatic for me.’

When she was seven, her parents decided to put down roots in San Francisco and Christine, an only child who ‘didn’t speak a lick of English’, was thrust into an alien world.

‘It wasn’t an easy transition at all. I was very lonely growing up. I was made fun of in school because I was one of very few Asians. I wanted to have blonde hair and blue eyes like everybody else – and there was a phase later in my life when I would dye my hair and wear blue contact lenses, just to blend in. It was what I thought someone who is beautiful and popular looks like.’

During her teens, she was bullied so badly that she ended up in hospital (‘without going into too much detail, brass knuckles were involved’).

‘Growing up in an Eastern culture, you are taught not to fight back. You suck it up, you work harder, you prove yourself in other ways, you become more successful.’ Tears roll down her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I didn’t think this would still affect me. I was so upset that my parents didn’t do anything.

I remember them saying: “You know what, you’re going to grow up and you’re going to be somebody and that’s all that matters.”’

Posing with her son Baby G, who – aged just four – already has a fleet of mini sportscars

Posing with her son Baby G, who – aged just four – already has a fleet of mini sportscars

After school, she graduated with honours in international business studies from LA’s Pepperdine University. She also became estranged from her father, a topic she doesn’t want to go into, only saying: ‘I did something he didn’t agree with, so he cut me off. We only reconciled in 2020 when my mother died. It’s still very early days. Perhaps it’s something we will address in the show in the future, but he’s a very private person.’

After university, Christine worked hard, taking jobs in marketing and PR before eventually buying her own house. ‘I love working. The thing that annoys me most is people think I married into money. I think a lot of women experience that. People still judge us based on how successful our husband is and ignore our accomplishments.’

She met her future husband Gabriel when she was working for a large medical corporation as vice president for marketing. ‘I was young. I was focused on creating a career for myself. I thought it would be a cliché to date a doctor. I was very resistant at first, but we fell in love and he proposed within three months.’

Christine used her marketing skills to promote her husband and the couple opened a plastic surgery centre in Beverly Hills that became famous for its ‘Mommy Makeover’, which includes a breast lift, liposuction and a tummy tuck. Today, the company has 35,000 patients on its books and, while Christine can’t name clients, Britney Spears recently paid a visit and posted about it on her social media.

Christine went from ‘literally painting the office walls’ to promoting her husband ‘in a world that was highly competitive and very Caucasian-orientated’.

She tells me: ‘I became the face of our practice because my husband is less social than I am. In a lot of ways it’s similar to Bling Empire. I was putting myself out there back then, to support the man I love, and I’m doing it again now to promote the bigger story behind the show, which is diversity and inclusion.’

Ironically, while she earns a salary as star and executive producer, it does not come anywhere close to paying for the couture – according to one report, she regularly spends six figures on a single gown – or the private jets and jewellery which are so much a part of Bling Empire.

‘I underwrite it,’ she says with a laugh. ‘What I get paid doesn’t even come close to what I’m spending.’ 

Spending aside, Christine is very conscious of what matters most to her. ‘When my mother was dying I had the crushing realisation that no amount of money could buy me more time with her. All I wanted was one more minute with her. Time is our greatest gift and our most treasured possession. All the money in the world can’t buy time.’

  • The second season of Bling Empire is streaming on Netflix now 
  • previous page, stylist: Carolina Orrico. HaiR: Junya Nakashima. Make-up: Ayami Nishimura. Producer: Christian Meshesha. Christine wears (previous page): jacket, Gucci; bandeau, Michael Kors; trousers, Dolce & Gabbana. netflix, Alamy 

 

 

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