only Mandarin at first. “There was a class
that taught Hispanic kids how to speak
English, so I joined that,” she says. She had
to learn Spanish in order to learn English.
“I was very much made fun of. I’ve had my
fair share of bullying. I went to three high
schools and it wasn’t easy.”
She says her parents wanted to keep her
grounded, emphasising the importance of
having a job. “My husband and I grew up in
affluency, and both sides went out of their
way to make sure we built a strong work
ethic.” She had a trust fund, but was cut off
from it because she “didn’t do exactly what
my parents wanted me to do at some point”.
She is guarded on this and won’t say exactly
why. That’s all ancient history, however, as
today the Chius’ clinic is “enormously
profitable”. With more than 35,000 patients
it’s the go-to place for celebrities and the
super-rich. She won’t name names.
Covid, she says, has caused a “Zoom
boom” in plastic surgery. The more people
are looking at their faces on a screen, the
more treatments they want. “People are
putting the money they would have spent
on a big vacation back into their body.
Before, they would chip away at their bucket
list of things to get done, but during Covidpeople are just getting it all done at once
because they can recover at home and hide.”
The clinic offers a “mommy makeover”,
which can include a breast lift, liposuction
and tummy tuck. “In many cases”, reads
the website, “women who have taken
perfect care of their bodies feel trapped
in their sagging or stretched skin as their
self-confidence diminishes.”
There is an argument, I suggest, that
plastic surgeons reinforce people’s
insecurities rather than curing them. There
is nothing more validating — and crushing
— than someone in a white coat telling you
that you have bingo wings and a flat arse.
“There are a lot of surgeons who would just
do it all — take the money and just do it.
With Dr Chiu, he is definitely on the more
natural side. He will talk people out of
surgeries,” she says.
I ask about her own list of regular
treatments. “Ironically I’m very needle-
phobic,” she admits. Her husband had to
hire an anaesthesiologist to sedate her justso she could have Botox. Now, though,
they have a machine called a Pro-Nox.
“It’s nitrous oxide,” she says — laughing
gas — “and I breathe into it, then he
[Gabriel] puts in some Botox and filler.”
Instagram is her playground. On it she
leads, by her own admission, a “frivolous,
materialistic” lifestyle. As a child she was
not allowed dolls, only books — “just black
and white and ink for me” — because her
parents wanted her to focus on her studies.
In traditional Asian culture, she says,
when a woman gets married she leaves
her old family and joins a new one. “My
late twenties were like a new chapter for
me. It was my chance to relive all these
suppressed little girl fantasies I had. And
I really went for it.”
She began bingeing on couture and today
tries to buy one piece from every fashion
show she attends — sometimes costing
six figures apiece. However, although she
looked as if she were living the Californian
dream on Instagram, behind the scenes she
was going through increasingly invasive
IVF treatment, “burning out” her body.
“I can see how [my husband’s parents]
were looking at my life from the outside and
thinking, this girl doesn’t want to be a mom,
she just wants to wear her designer clothing
and travel.” The pressure was building on
her to have a son, with her in-laws blaming
her body and health. “In the eastern Asian
culture you don’t talk back [to elders]. It’s
just how it goes. So I would say, ‘I’m sorry,
I’m trying, I will do better, I promise.’ ”
Didn’t she mind carrying the can for her
husband’s infertility — an issue that she
says stemmed from “a medical problem he
had from when he was very young” —
for 11 years? “I really don’t know what my
in-laws’ response would have been if I’d said
it wasn’t me. I don’t know if they would
have accepted it. It’s a very east Asian
expectation for the wife to protect the
husband and to protect the family. It was
my duty and my role. I wasn’t OK with it,
but I knew that’s what I had to do.”
At one point the couple considered using
a sperm donor and smuggling a biologically
illegitimate heir past Gabriel’s family.
“I remember looking at these photos of
donors and thinking, could this pass off
[as Gabriel]? Then I remember thinking,
they would DNA the baby, there’s no way
we could pull this off.”
Christine thought she was going to take
the secret of her husband’s fertility issues
with her to the grave, until it “blurted” out
of her mouth as the Bling Empire cameras
were rolling. Her husband discusses it on
camera too. She says she is talking about it
now in order to push against Asian
expectations of privacy and, as a result, ease
the shame. Huge numbers of people have
got in touch with her as a result.
“I didn’t realise that so many Asian
women were undergoing IVF — whether
it’s because of male or female infertility.Top: Christine clashes with Anna Shay on
the show. Above: with her husband, Gabriel,
the philanthropist Bruno Wang, left, and the
Prince of Wales at Dumfries House, 2019PREVIOUS PAGES: BRINSON + BANKS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. SET DESIGN: PAIGE BOWEN. THIS PAGE: NETFLIX, PA
The Sunday Times Magazine • 11