Etta Ng Chok Lam – Life Story of Jackie Chan’s Daughter

Etta Ng Chok Lam, the daughter of Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan, does not have a relationship with her father. Born to Chan and his one-time mistress Elaine Ng Yi-Lei, Etta has been forced to deal with a number of personal issues since her birth. Although her father acknowledged the affair, he hardly ever spoke about the child resulted from it and was not involved in her upbringing. Her mother brought her up on her own, but their relationship has become strained as well. In 2017, she came out as a lesbian on social media and has since dated and married a Canadian national.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDAUW8-d6zM

Etta Ng Chok Lam Was Raised By Her Single Mother

Etta has been unwittingly at the centre of controversy since her birth. Her father, Jackie Chan, is one of the most internationally renowned and richest actors of all time. According to one estimate, Chan is currently worth about 300 to 400 million US dollars. In the late 1990s, he began a passionate affair with Elaine Ng Yi-Lei, who was crowned Miss Asia in 1999 and acted in films like ‘Who’s the Winner’ and ‘Old Time Buddy – To Catch a Thief’. However, Chan was already married at the time, to Taiwanese actress Joan Lin, and they had a son together, named Jaycee. While Chan and Elaine’s affair did not last long, the latter announced that she was pregnant with Chan’s child in 1999. Etta was born on January 18, 1999.

Although Chan accepted that he had the extramarital affair with Elaine, he defended himself by saying that he had “only committed a fault that many men in the world commit”. Elaine chose to raise her daughter on her own and once reportedly stated that Etta had not received any financial help from her father.

Etta Ng Chok Lam Is Estranged From Both Her Parents

Etta doesn’t have any relationship with Chan, as she has never met him. In a 2015 interview with Sunday Express, she said that she did not consider Chan her father.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1zuar2yeg

“[He has] never existed in my life. I will never regard him as a father,” she told the British news outlet. “I would not say that he is my dad. I would say, ‘Oh, Jackie Chan, an actor.’”

As she grew older, she became calmer, and her attitude towards her father became more tempered as well. In early 2018, a video made rounds on social media showing Etta walking around in the streets of Canada and asking for her father. She later explained that she made that video to reconnect with her father and ask him what actually happened immediately after she was born.

She rejected the notion that she did this because she wanted money from him, stating, “When I was looking for my father, it was because there were many things I didn’t know. I wasn’t asking him for money”.

In late 2019, in a tell-all interview with Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, she reiterated her desire to meet her father. However, Chan is yet to make any comprehensive public statement about her. She and her mother were not mentioned in the ‘Shanghai Noon’ actor’s candid and explosive memoir, ‘Never Grow Up’, though he did write about the affair.

Over the years, Etta’s relationship with her mother has deteriorated, with the former accusing the latter of abuse and cruelty. She also accused her mother of not accepting that she is a lesbian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1zuar2yeg

“She’s (Elaine) a very traditional woman, it’s harder for her to accept [it],” she told Apple Daily. “When she sends me messages, she will use ‘you and your friend’ and not ‘you and your wife’”. The person they were speaking about is Etta’s wife, social media influencer Andi Autumn.

On the other hand, Elaine has implied that she has issues with Andi in particular. In December 2019, she took to Facebook to share the grievances she had with her daughter’s spouse.

Etta Ng Chok Lam Had a Troubled Childhood

As mentioned above, Etta was brought up by Elaine on her own, and they shared a tumultuous relationship, which reportedly was the reason why Etta dropped out of school. Elaine once said that her daughter had mental health problems and required professional help. She also revealed that Etta had seen a therapist for a short period. However, when the younger woman moved out of Hong Kong, she stopped going to therapy.

Etta Ng Chok Lam Came Out Of The Closet At 18

During the interview with Apple Daily, Etta said that she had a girlfriend when she was in kindergarten. However, it was not until she was six years old that she realised she was attracted to girls and had no wish to talk about boys with others in her class

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oza-g7Ji3k

According to her, she had a hard time speaking about her sexual orientation to others, especially her mother, to appease whom she even went on a date with a boy. She eventually came out as a lesbian in a series of Instagram posts in the fall of 2017.

Responding to a question about his daughter’s sexuality, Chan provided a short answer in October 2017, “If she likes it, that’s fine.”

Etta Ng Chok Lam Was Homeless For A While

After relocating to Canada with her then-girlfriend Andi, Etta encountered financial issues and became homeless. On April 24, 2018, she mentioned in a since-deleted video that she was struggling to survive and was living under a bridge. She and Andi blamed their families and friends for their situation and accused them of homophobia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDAUW8-d6zM

In the video, she introduced herself as “Jackie Chan’s daughter”. When the Hong Kong website Coconuts approached her mother for a comment on the video, she said it was “wrong”.

“I feel that if they have no money, they should go find work,” she elaborated. “They shouldn’t film a clip telling others they are broke and who Etta’s father is. People all over the world work hard and don’t rely on someone else’s fame to get money.”

Etta Ng Chok Lam Is A Married Woman

In November 2018, Etta announced on her Instagram that she and Andi had gotten married. In one of the photos she shared, she and her new wife could be seen holding up their marriage certificate, which is dated 8 November.

The 21-year-old Etta had been romantically involved with Andi, 32, since 2017. They moved back to Hong Kong in 2019. Etta told Apple Daily that they were establishing a creative agency in the city.