Chrissie Chau

Chau migrated from Chaozhou to Hong Kong with her family when she was 10. She states that she worked in a fast-food restaurant when she was 15, and then as a shop assistant in Causeway Bay earning HK$3,000 (about US$380) a month.^[1]

Chau is Hong Kong's most famous pseudo-model, or lang mo.^[2] She began pseudo-modelling after she won the runner-up title in the 2002 Comics Festival 'Game Girl'. She rose to prominence as the poster girl for Slim Beauty slimming boutique. In a TV commercial for the boutique, Chau rips off her clothes, revealing a bikini underneath, to 'stop the traffic' while she crosses the road in the business district of Central.^[3] In 2009, she released a limited edition life-sized poster with her likeness– dressed in lingerie– printed on the cover, at HK$560 (about US$72) apiece.^[4]

Chrissie Chau was invited as a guest for a talk show at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in late 2009, as part of a seminar series entitled "Knowledge Unlimited", aimed at widening students' horizons. Chau was invited as a guest to the seminar to discuss "Unscrambling the Chrissie Chau Phenomenon".^[5] Chau was interviewed by Professor Li Siu-leung of Lingnan University in front of an audience of 400 students. She was asked a number of philosophical and existential questions, and was criticised for not being able to answer them; The Standard described this as "an old-fashioned ambush". The university was in turn criticised by radio host Eileen Cha for choosing Chau for a seminar series entitled Knowledge Unlimited.^[6]

In 2010, Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong openly criticised and ridiculed pseudo-models, specifically Chrissie Chau, calling them brainless and "bimbos".^[7] The related controversy led to pseudo-models being banned from a book-fair.

In February 2026, Martin Lee Ka-shing, co-chairman of Henderson Land Development, filed a defamation and harassment lawsuit in the High Court of Hong Kong against Chau. Lee alleged that Chau had orchestrated a rumour campaign since 2016 suggesting a romantic or “kept” relationship between them in order to promote her films and public profile. According to the filing, related rumours resurfaced online after the death of Lee’s father, Lee Shau-kee, in March 2025, and expanded to include criminal allegations against Lee, which Lee said caused distress while he was mourning. Lee also alleged that Chau in a June 2025 interview arranged the host Akina Fong to mention the rumours about him; Fong later confirmed that the question to Chau had been discussed in advance. Chau responded that she explicitly denied the rumors in the interview and had never encouraged the belief that the two had any personal relationship.^[8]