Lesbian heiress pleas to father over £78m wedding bounty

A LESBIAN property heiress whose father offered £78m to any man who can seduce and marry her has written him an open letter to say her love is not for sale.

The letter from Gigi Chao was addressed "Dear Daddy" but widely circulated among Hong Kong media, including the South China Morning Post.

"As your daughter, I would want nothing more than to make you happy. But in terms of relationships, your expectations of me and the reality of who I am are not coherent," wrote Chao, 33, who continues to receive a stream of letters from hopeful suitors.

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She urged her father to accept her female partner of 11 years, Sean Eav, and "treat her like a normal, dignified human being".

Chao nevertheless heaps praise on her father and says she is sorry that people had been saying "insensitive things" about him. "The truth is, they don't understand that I will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests," she said.

Chao tells her father that she has had relationships with men before but they were "always short-lived", as she "lost patience" and "felt an indescribable discomfort in their presence".

She explains that she loves her partner Sean who "does a good job of looking after me, ensuring I am fed, bathed and warm enough every day, and generally cheering me up to be a happy, jolly girl".

Her father Cecil Chao first offered a bounty in September 2012 to any man who could successfully walk his gay daughter down the aisle. The payment – originally set at £40m – horrified gay and lesbian organisations in Asia. But he upped the bounty earlier this month, insisting his daughter's "thinking will change in the future".

Speaking to The Times, Gigi said: "Since Dad thinks it's so easy for me to switch from gay to straight, I should just leave it for him to demonstrate. I think I'll marry a man when he marries a man."