She is neither a singer nor an actress, but Lee Jinglei has attracted media attention ever since she married singer Wang Leehom back in 2013.
She was 27 and a doctoral student at Columbia University in New York City when she tied the knot with Wang, who is 10 years her senior.
News on Dec 15 that Lee, 35, and Wang, 45, had divorced has put the media spotlight on her once more.
Interest in her surged over the weekend after her explosive social media post that accused Wang of failings including infidelities.
Here are six things to know about the previously low-profile mother of three.
According to the Taiwan media, Lee did her undergraduate studies at the prestigious Princeton University and went on to get a doctoral degree from the business school of Columbia University, which is also an Ivy League institution. She worked as an analyst at JP Morgan after completing her studies, Taiwan media reported.
Lee’s mother, Lee Yiu-man, acted as the second female lead in Hong Kong action movie Return To Action (1990). She acted alongside Hong Kong film stars Alex Man and Rosamund Kwan. Lee fell off the entertainment industry’s radar afterwards.
While it is unclear what passport she holds presently, Lee grew up in Taiwan and has a Japanese father. Lee used to go by the Japanese name Michiko Nishimura.
Netizens have speculated that Lee might have adopted a Chinese name at Wang’s request. In 2015, this issue made the news in China when Lee’s name appeared to be registered as Wang Jinglei when she passed through airport customs.
As of Dec 20 evening, Lee has some 807,000 followers on Instagram, with her follower count still increasing steadily. We’re not surprised, as she has raised important discussions about the role of women in this modern society in an empathy-evoking manner. At the same time, Lee has won the hearts of netizens for her strong Chinese writing skills.
Lee’s followers have increased by more than 250,000 since her first post on the divorce. Her rebuttal of Wang’s denial of her accusations on Monday morning has garnered over 281,000 likes.
Previously, Lee was seldom active on her Instagram account. Her last post before the saga was on Oct 12, more than four months after an earlier post in June.
Wang and Lee got hitched in 2013 .
Back then, the singer introduced his bride in a Weibo post, describing her as his “Forever Love” and appealing to his fans to look upon her favourably. He highlighted that his parents had expressed their approval of Lee and the upcoming marriage.
He also stated then that he had known Lee for 12 years through their parents, who have been friends for many years.
Lee gave birth to their first daughter, Jiali, in 2014.
Jiana, the couple’s second daughter, followed in 2016. Jiayao, their son, was born in 2018. Lee describes her children as her “everything”, and has never shown their faces on social media.
This article was first published on The Straits Times.