Gigi Chao, the daughter of a Hong Kong business man who made headlines in 2012 by offering a HK$500 million “dowry” to any man who could persuade his gay daughter to marry, has urged her father to accept her wife in public plea.

Property developer Cecil Chao last week doubled his offer of 500 million to HK$1 billion (€80 million), prompting socialite daughter Gigi (pictured right) to write an open letter to two major Hong Kong papers, gently rebuking his actions and urging him to accept her partner, Sean Eav (pictured left), whom she married in a civil ceremony in France in 2012.

Gigi Chao’s letter, published in the South China Morning Post, reads: “As your daughter, I would want nothing more than to make you happy. But in terms of relationships, your expectations of me and the reality of who I am, are not coherent. “

“I am responsible for some of this misplaced expectation, because I must have misled you to hope there were other options for me. You know I’ve had male lovers in the past, and I’ve had happy, albeit short-lived, relationships.”

“But it was always short-lived, as I quickly lost patience, and felt an indescribable discomfort in their presence.”

Continuing on, she writes, “But with Sean, a woman, somehow it was different. I am comfortable and satisfied with my life and completely at ease with her. I know it’s difficult for you to understand how I could feel romantically attracted to a woman; I suppose I can’t really explain it either. It just happens, peacefully and gently, and after so many years, we still love each other very much.”

In the letter’s sign off, she writes, “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.

“There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me.”

Despite his daughter’s sweet letter, Cecil may still be slow to come around – in a recent interview with Malaysian newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, he insisted she was still single and that it wasn’t too late to change her mind because she was young, reports news.com.au.