In 2012, Cecil Chao, a successful real estate developer in Hong Kong offered 500 million Hong Kong dollars (about $65 million) to anyone who would marry his daughter, Gigi Chao, who is openly gay. She is now revisiting the offer and responding in an open letter.
On Wednesday, her letter was published in two Hong Kong newspapers. In it, she calls his attempt to marry her off to a man “incoherent.”
“As your daughter, I would want nothing more than to make you happy," she wrote, CNN reports. "But in terms of relationships, your expectations of me and the reality of who I am, are not coherent."
Chao made the offer in 2012 after finding out his daughter had gotten married to her longtime girlfriend, Sean Eav, in Paris.
At the time, Gigi actually said she was “touched” by his offer, saying “I wasn't angry at all. I was really quite touched, very touched and very moved, by daddy's announcement. I mean, it's really his way of saying 'baby girl, I love you. You deserve more,' basically.”
The 77-year-old Chao has never been married and has three children from three different women.
In the letter, Gigi also wrote "I am sorry that people have been saying insensitive things about you lately,” adding she "will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests."
She also said she wishes he would accept her wife, saying "It would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.”