10 things you didn't know about rising star Chantalle Ng

While we know her as a full-time actress now, Chantalle Ng's acting history goes back and began in 2013. That year, at the age of 18, Chantalle Ng had her first acting gig as Lin Shuting in 96°C Café. A year later, she played minor roles in Yes We Can! and World At Your Feet. She wouldn't start acting as a full-time job until she signed the contract with Mediacorp in 2019 and starred in two shows that same year - Derek and Old Is Gold. Now, the actress is filming the blockbuster drama Emerald Hill, a spin-off of the popular television series The Little Nyonya (2008).

It wasn't until 2021 when Chantalle Ng received widespread acclaim with her breakout role as Vietnamese bride Mei Fang Cao in My Star Bride opposite actor Xu Bin. To prepare for the role, Chantalle Ng enlisted the help of a Vietnamese coach as well as her friend's manicurist, who was herself a Vietnamese bride, to nail down her accent. In fact, she needed to take Mandarin lessons to wean it off.

Despite having actors as parents - her mother is Lin Meijiao and her father is Huang Yiliang - Chantalle Ng is definitely not a nepo baby. In 2018, she scored the Star Awards' Best Newcomer award for her role in While We Are Young.

Her stellar performance in My Star Bride too, scored her a Best Actress nomination in 2022. That same year, she scored her first Top 10 Most Popular Female Artiste win, which she won again in 2023 and 2024. In 2024, she was also nominated for Best Actress for her show, All That Glitters.

In a 2021 episode of Hear U Out, Chantalle Ng spoke about the difficult childhood she had with her dad, Huang Yiliang. Her parents had filed for divorce when she was a few months old. "Most of the unhappiness that I had when I was a child came from my dad. My parents were divorced before I turned one and I had to visit my dad every Sunday because my mum had custody of me."

As a result, her memory of her dad has been a mixed bag. "It's just that sometimes, his temper can be volatile and I would not know when he would become angry."

She also recounted a particularly memorable incident. "Perhaps he was under a lot of stress and my PSLE was coming up, so he engaged a lot of tutors to give me lessons. Maybe he felt anxious for me to do well and one of them might have given him negative feedback. (My dad) got angry when he heard that I wasn't good in maths and he lost control of himself when he came to my place. The matter became a police case (because) I got hit and it was so serious that I had to be hospitalised for a week."

Huang Yiliang later went on Facebook to share his side of the story. "Three days before the incident, your mother and I had a call, she told me to play the bad cop and she'd play the good cop. I bought two rattan canes and brought it to your home. I just wanted to show you the canes and scare you. It's an effective trick, it works on every kid but you. I didn't realise Lin Meijiao would turn into the mother hen, and I the eagle, you the chick. If you had let me hit you lightly for show, then we'd have been done. Because I was just fulfilling my duty as the bad cop."

Named Yuan Collagen Soup, the online-based brand selling collagen broth started in 2020 with her friend Minying Wong. The business started during the Covid-19 Circuit Breaker when Chantalle Ng had a lull in her work calendar. Her partner comes from a family that does F&B and consequently has the relevant expertise.

It is uncertain if the brand is still around, however, as its Instagram page has not been updated in two years.

When Chantalle Ng was younger, she wanted to be a singer. When asked again in 2021, she shared that if given the chance to be a singer, she would do it on the side. "I enjoy it, but I’m not sure what it’d be like as a career. If the opportunity arises, I would gladly accept it, but I won’t give up acting to be a singer."

That said, if Chantalle Ng didn't become an actor, she would have likely pursued a career in IT (she studied Information Systems at SMU). "I would definitely have gone into the tech industry. It’s so different [from acting] but there are parts of it that I can see myself truly enjoying, such as project management or sales. IT has always been my backup plan, so if my acting career doesn’t work out, I would consider doing it, but for now, I’m pretty happy and I’ll be here for a while."

At the end of 2022, Chantalle Ng revealed that she was currently "talking to someone now". "We're just getting to know each other. We are at that age where we should be out dating people, and put ourselves out there. I don't believe in shying away from opportunities to meet people, you know, just 'cos of my occupation. I think it should get to a stage where we're both comfortable, and if we ever decide to commit, and be in like a long-term relationship, then I'd definitely share it with everyone."

She added that she has plans to be married at 35. "Every time when I share it with people around me, they'll just laugh at me and say, You know, you can't give life a timeline'. For me, I hope to be married at 35, I feel like it's the ideal age. Some may feel that it's a bit older, but I think that's the point where I'd be more stable in terms of my career and my mental health and everything, [to] just become a better person in all aspects. And be ready to share my life with someone else. I think that would be the most ideal age."

Not only is she a plant mum, but Chantalle Ng also has a couple of pets that include two chickens - yes, chickens. She jumped at a chance to rear chickens after a friend mentioned that he was going to do so with five silkie chickens. "I've always wanted to live on a farm, surrounded by nature with animals and plants. I follow a few personalities on social media who rear chickens and saw how cute these little animals are."

Pet lover Chantalle Ng also has two dogs - Dasher and Pretty - that she adopted from SOSD Singapore, a local organisation that rescues, rehabilitates and rehomes stray and abandoned dogs.

Unfortunately, this year, her dog Dasher, a miniature poodle had died before her birthday.

In June 2022, Chantalle Ng took to her Instagram Stories to seek help from her followers to help locate a former child actor, Xiao Li Yuan. The two had met when she was 11 while her mother, Lin Meijiao, was filming Let It Shine which he starred in.

And with the help of her followers, she managed to reconnect with him after just a day of posting the Instagram Stories. The two met up for brunch, together with Felicia Chin, and the two friends finally rekindled.

"A friend of his contacted me and we met up today!! Thank you everyone for your help! He's doing really well in the corporate sector and has decided to keep a low profile since 🫶🏻"

An encounter with a zealous fan can quickly turn scary, as Chantalle Ng found out in 2022. She recounted the incident in 2023 that happened when she was alone at the Esplanade. The male fan had followed her, asked for a photo then continued to follow and asked for more photographs together. "His behaviour made me uncomfortable. I’ve tried to tell him nicely that we’ve taken a lot of photos and if he wanted more, we can do so at a fan event. However, he continued trailing me."

In the end, Chantalle Ng managed to make her escape by popping into Chen Diya's cafe Sanity nearby. "I felt a little unsafe and I didn’t want him following me to my next destination. Then I suddenly thought of [Chen] Diya’s cafe on the second floor." While the singer wasn't around, the staff protected her. "They saw a man following me, touching me, and asking to take photos. They immediately let me in and kept him out." A staff later even accompanied Ng to her next destination to ensure her safety.