Cover Cheng wears Bernadette dress, from Matchesfashion; Swarovski bracelet, earrings; Jennifer Behr hair clip, from Net-A-Porter (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

Canto-pop star Joyce Cheng opens up to Tatler about championing self-esteem, female empowerment—and her continuing journey towards loving herself unconditionally

Joyce Cheng emerges from the shadows in a va-va-voom glittering emerald number and stares down the lens, her fingers curled around a crystal-encrusted, apple-shaped clutch like a fairytale queen. In a shoot at The Magistracy, Black Sheep Group’s gorgeous new restaurant in Tai Kwun, Cheng fills the room with energy, sashaying in flowing skirts and gasping in awe as she holds up a butterfly-embellished dress. She strikes up banter with the crew, makes sure everyone has had a chance to eat, and sings Happy Birthday to her hair stylist, while playing up to a parody of a difficult diva persona and provoking laughter in between shots with jocular antics. “I am Batman!” she growls as she stands in an alcove, holding up the edges of a yellow gown like wings. Benjamin Teh, her best friend and a fixture of her YouTube channel, cheers her on from the sidelines.

Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Gucci outfit; Kenneth Jay Lane earring, from Lane Crawford (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

While she has acted and presented, she is best known as a singer and champion of body positivity and diversity. “I think I’ve just been very lucky with the timing,” she says, reflecting on her particularly stellar past year of accolades, awards and endorsements, driven by fresh, big-hitting songs and a pandemic spent growing a formidable online following. “Of course, there’s hard work. But everyone in the industry works hard. It just so happens that it’s been a trend to be authentic and not need to fit into a cookie cutter mould for a pop singer. When I was a kid, the entertainment industry was very different: if I had debuted during that era, I don’t think I would have stood a chance. [My success is] just circumstance combined with my unwillingness to stop.”

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Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Self-Portrait dress, from Net-A-Porter; Roger Vivier headband; Swarovski necklace, ring (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

In real life, as on record and on screen, Cheng, 35, is an uplifting force, albeit more measured and nuanced away from the cameras. She has changed into her own Ganni smiley T-shirt and high-waisted stonewashed jeans, still wearing the shoot’s lilac eyeshadow, rhinestones still sparkling in the corners of her eyes. She looks to Teh frequently, often just to check he’s laughing. She had recorded music since her early 2000s and released her first album in 2011, but it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that she finally found a style that truly connected with an audience. Her 2015 single, Are You Skinny Enough?, held up a magnifying glass to society’s narrow beauty ideals, and in 2016, she dropped the chart-topping Goddess, a soft ballad that established her as a champion of self-esteem. “Don’t look down or the halo will fall off/You are a goddess/Don’t hide your true colours from being judged,” she sings, accompanied by a self-directed black-and-white video in which she crafts pageant crowns to place on the heads of a cast representing people from all walks of life. 

This laid the foundations for her raw, honest approach to stardom that grinds against Canto-pop’s tradition of heavily managed and filtered performers, yet has been welcomed by her legion of fans, or “Joysticks”, as they call themselves. Last year’s album Joyce to the World, her first after joining Media Asia in 2020, juxtaposed thumping EDM with gentle piano, spotlighting self-love and female empowerment. Club banger Glitterfalls (“Flick, snap, baby wave ’em off”) and the countrified BBBB: Big Boobs Bubble Butt (“Not sorry that I ain’t your type of body”), anthems for self-acceptance and ignoring haters, drew comparisons to Lizzo, Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor, and set a new precedent for authenticity and defiance of convention in Hong Kong showbiz. Accompanying high-production-value videos cemented Cheng’s status as a cheerleader for the marginalised; anyone who falls outside the conventions of society. Or “The Katniss Everdeen of the f**k-the-haters movement” whose “presence on stage is as inspiring as it gets”, as one Hong Kong publication described her. However, the human behind the hits is still working it all out.

Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Raquel Diniz dress, from Matchesfashion; Swarovski x Aquazzura heels; Gucci gloves; Fendi earring; Jennifer Behr hair clip, from Net-A-Porter (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

Reflecting on her Goddess reinvention, she says, “For a brief moment, I thought I’d figured life out: I just needed to love myself and encourage those around me to love themselves, then I’d be set for life. That’s not how life goes, though: there are always ups and downs. I’d be talking crap if I’d said it’s been smooth sailing since 2016.” She grew up immersed in the entertainment industry—a glittering world of confidence and connections—but also gained an early insight into its darker side: the hounding by the paparazzi and the lack of anonymity that being born into an A-list family brings, as well as the granular, often snide, analysis of her every move, usually relating to her body.

Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Celine Kwan dress; Versace jacket; Loewe shoes; Mugler x Wolford tights; Kenneth Jay Lane earring; Judith Leiber clutch, from Lane Crawford (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)
Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Celine Kwan dress; Versace jacket; Loewe shoes; Mugler x Wolford tights; Kenneth Jay Lane earring; Judith Leiber clutch, from Lane Crawford (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

From celebrity websites that deceitfully tout “Joyce Cheng’s weight-loss secrets” to entice clicks, to magazines that Photoshop her face and body beyond recognition, Cheng is constantly fighting against the notion that she shouldn’t be happy in her skin. She even faces overzealous body-sculpting in her own music videos. “All the time!” Teh chips in. Cheng says, “In one video, I saw the editor had made my neck and body slimmer, which changed my shape entirely. I didn’t ask for that. I was crying on my way to a rehearsal, like, when is it enough? Everything already looked so beautiful without having to be retouched.” She even adopts a hardline approach with fans: “When they want to take selfies, I’m always like, no filter! Use the normal camera! What if you go missing one day and people only have these Meitued photos of you?,” she says, referring to use of the popular photo-editing app. “Everyone knows what I look like, and it’s OK.”

Gaining this level of control over her image and confidence in her instincts has been a process, one she admits she is still working on. “It’s times when my gut’s telling me to do something and I don’t listen to it that I regret,” she says.

“I have quite a clear idea of where I want to be.” No sooner has her voice started cracking than Teh is there with a napkin. She dabs her eyes. “The question is, how do I get there? I don’t know why I’m getting emotional about this, but it’s a fun journey. It should be fun.”

Tatler Asia
Above Cheng wears Raquel Diniz dress, from Matchesfashion; Swarovski x Aquazzura heels; Gucci gloves; Fendi earring; Jennifer Behr hair clip, from Net-A-Porter (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

She is ultra-aware of her platform and feels a responsibility to live up to the persona she projects, even if she’s still on that road herself. “I think a lot of people hear my songs, and they hear a message that has a lot of empowerment, confidence and self-esteem behind it. And that’s who I want to be. That’s my projection of who I want to be; it’s how I want to perceive myself. But it’s a never-ending journey.

“Especially six years ago, when Goddess first came out, I felt like such a fraud, because I would have bad days where I would not want to look at myself in the mirror, or I did not feel good in any outfit I put on. Or I would walk into a room and compare myself to other women. But that’s OK. Of course, I strive not to do that. I’ve been doing that a lot less. But it’s a journey. It is difficult not to be so hard on yourself. But it’s worth putting in the hard work.”

What’s her relationship like with that side of yourself now? “I think I’m pretty good at it. I like who I’m becoming. Let’s say that.”

When live performances were barred during the pandemic, Cheng pivoted to vlogging, growing her fanbase with insights to her daily life ranging from honest and heartfelt to mundane and funny under the moniker “Joyce is Moist”. Vlogging, she says, “allowed me to control my narrative. Growing up in the spotlight pre-social media, there was a lot of stuff written about me without a way to control my narrative. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, so I’d choose to say nothing. I just kept on telling myself, time will reveal all with my hard work and dedication. My YouTube was the perfect opportunity for everyone to see me for who I am. There were more vulnerable moments and it was a more intimate kind of setting where I’m not”—she becomes exaggeratedly animated—“Ha lo! Dai ga hou! Ngo hai Joyce Cheng Yan-yee!”

As for the Joysticks, “They are so effing funny,” she exclaims. “They cheer me up so much and I don’t think they realise how important their love is. When I’m onstage and hear them screaming my name, that energy is transferred to me and I’m able to give it back to them. It’s an addictive, beautiful thing.”

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It’s a journey. It is difficult not to be so hard on yourself. But it’s worth putting in the hard work

- Joyce Cheng -

Cheng is the daughter of actor and singer Adam Cheng and Lydia Shum, the bespectacled comedian, singer and star of countless TV programmes and films. Cheng has inherited her mother’s ebullience, room-filling laughter, and ability to poke fun at her own pratfalls and deflect criticism with jokes. Especially in Shum’s earlier appearances, many of the punchlines revolved around her plus-sized figure and she often played the comic foil, yet she became one of Hong Kong’s most successful and beloved female entertainers of her time. Cheng’s first taste of performing was alongside her mother singing on TV as a child, but after her parents divorced while she was still small, Cheng, who was born in Vancouver, was largely raised by her maternal grandmother. “She was very protective of me, because how would she answer to my mom if something happened to me? I was never really allowed to leave the house until later in my teenage years, so I lived a very sheltered life.”

Though she featured in the press from a young age, her own turn in the entertainment industry came after her mother and grandmother—together the backbone of her family—both died in 2008. As she has made her way in the world since then, her career has been a rollercoaster of pitfalls and highs, and the version of herself today has been galvanised by years of fighting to be the kind of performer she not only wants to be but also see in the industry around her.

Where did she learn to navigate fame? After a long pause, she says, “I was a very bad, rebellious kid and did not listen to anyone. I’ve always had it in me. I just want to do it my way and figure out my own path on my own terms. There’s this Chinese saying—I hate it, but it’s true—which means, ‘If you’re going to eat the salted fish, you’d better be okay with being thirsty’.”

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Above Cheng wears Agua by Agua Bendita dress, from Matchesfashion; Jennifer Behr hair clip, from Net-A-Porter (Photo: Leungmo/Tatler Hong Kong)

“All my life, I’ve been told: ‘Don’t do it, Joyce: just stay in your lane, stay safe, go to school, be with the family. You’re not going to make it.’ Or later on, ‘Stay on TV, don’t become a singer.’ Then, ‘Don’t sing songs that aren’t about love. Oh, you’re gonna sing self-love songs. Uh, well, good luck to you.’ This still comes from people in my life, and it’s from a place of love, but at the end of the day, I still need to listen to my gut.”

She begins sobbing softly once more yet continues through the tears. “I say, thank you for your advice, but I’m going to do it my way. If I fail, at least it’s me. And that’s worked out so far, so I just keep going.”

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Credits

Photography  

Leungmo

Styling  

Cherry Mui

Hair  

Milk Chan @Xenter Hair Salon

Make-Up  

Chan San

Stylist's Assistant  

Summer Li

Location  

The Magistracy

Topics