In this undated photo, Gigi Chao, right, daughter of the Hong Kong property tycoon Cecil Chao, poses with her partner Sean Eav at an event in Hong Kong. The daughter of the prominent Hong Kong tycoon who has offered $65 million to any man who can woo her away from her lesbian partner says she's not upset with her father. Gigi says she's on "very loving terms" with her father. He made world headlines this week when he offered the 500 million Hong Kong dollar marriage bounty after learning that his daughter had eloped with her partner to France. (AP Photo)
'Dear Daddy', men aren't for me
01:18 - Source: CNN AP

Story highlights

Gigi Chao writes an open letter to her father that is published in local papers

In 2012, he offered a huge dowry to any man who married her

A Malaysian newspaper reported this month that he is willing to double the offer

But his daughter urges him to accept her sexuality and her longtime female partner

Hong Kong CNN  — 

The lesbian daughter of a Hong Kong tycoon who has offered millions of dollars to any man who can win her heart is asking him to come to terms with her sexuality.

The flamboyant Hong Kong tycoon who offered millions of dollars to any man who could win the heart of his lesbian daughter says the proposal is now off the table.

Cecil Chao, a wealthy real estate developer, made headlines around the world in 2012 when he offered 500 million Hong Kong dollars (roughly $65 million) to any man who succeeded in marrying his daughter.

Recent reports that he was willing to double the offer put his family back in the headlines. Gigi Chao, 34, responded by writing him an open letter, published in local newspapers this week, asking him to come to terms with her sexuality.

In her letter, Gigi Chao tells her father that she “will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests.”

His refusal to accept the relationship leaped back into the news in Hong Kong this month after a Malaysian newspaper that interviewed him reported that he might be willing to double his dowry offer.

Men are ‘just not for me’

The renewed media glare appears to have prompted Gigi Chao, 34, to pen her heartfelt letter. She confirmed to CNN that she wrote it.

“I am sorry that people have been saying insensitive things about you lately,” she writes to her father, stressing that she “will always forgive you for thinking the way you do, because I know you think you are acting in my best interests.”

And she says she takes responsibility for some of her father’s misplaced expectations.

When he first announced the colossal dowry in 2012, she said at the time she found it “quite entertaining.”

But this week she appeared to set the record straight.

“I’m sorry to mislead you to think I was only in a lesbian relationship because there was a shortage of good, suitable men in Hong Kong,” she writes. “There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me.”

Plea to accept partner

She says in her letter that she felt “an indescribable discomfort” in the presence of boyfriends she had in the past. But with 46-year-old Eav, she says she is “comfortable and satisfied with my life and completely at ease with her.”

In the interview Thursday, Cecil Chao repeatedly said that the big financial offer to any man who could win his daughter’s hand in marriage was finished.

Gigi Chao says in her letter that she regrets that her father has “no idea how happy I am with my life.”

She also urges him to try to accept her female partner.

“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,” she writes.

CNN’s Anjali Tsui and Tim Schwarz contributed to this report.