From The Straits Times    |

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Getai star Liu Lingling, 50, is the mother of a baby boy after a secret pregnancy, say reports.

A day after Shin Min Daily News and Lianhe Wanbao broke the story, the singer refused a request for an interview from Life! through a text message. She wrote in English yesterday: “I am bed-ridden and having a nervous breakdown from all the reporters calling in non-stop. I seek your understanding.”

Shin Min said she had missed the evening newspapers’ Getai Awards last Thursday, after having her first baby the night before.

She told Shin Min she had named the boy Xiangxiang, but declined to divulge his surname and his father’s identity.

“Whoever you see me with one day, that person will be the child’s father,” she said.

The newspaper said yesterday, citing unnamed sources, that she has a husband of 15 years, businessman Qiu Jinhai, and that they ran up debts of $100,000 holding a wedding banquet for 1,000 guests.

It said he left the country because of financial woes brought on by the 1997 crisis, but returned quietly more than a year ago.

Asked about the husband, however, she told Shin Min yesterday: “I don’t know who the father is.”

She said she had kept her own family in the dark about the pregnancy because she was not sure it would succeed.

It was her second attempt to have a baby by artificial insemination. The first attempt ended in a miscarriage.

The process cost her a six-figure sum, and she said: “I’ve spent half of my life savings.”

Her life was not as hunky-dory as it looked from the outside, she added. “To try for a child, to support my family, I worked very hard to make money. I’ve suffered a lot all these years, but as much as I’ve suffered, as long as I have a child of my own, everything is worth it.”

This article was first run in The Straits Times newspaper on October 1, 2013. For similar stories, go to sph.straitstimes.com/premium/singapore. You will not be able to access the Premium section of The Straits Times website unless you are already a subscriber.