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Jackie Chan is worth $400 million. His 24-year-old daughter lives in poverty.

In his own words, Jackie Chan is a “real bastard”.

Chan is arguably the world’s biggest action star. He’s an industry legend and a household name, but in his own home, he didn’t display action-hero qualities.

Mistreating former girlfriends and claiming his long-time wife was a gold digger, throwing his baby boy into a couch in a fit of rage… these are just a few of the 70-year-old’s self-confessed missteps. 

When he made the revelations in his 2018 memoir, Never Grow Up, they became old news quickly, and Chan went back to his superstar life. It’s a tale as old as time. Male star does inexcusable things, male star seeks redemption, male star is granted a free pass.

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Think: Johnny Depp, Shia LeBeouf, Chris Brown, even Brad Pitt.

But there’s one part of his private life Chan would like to keep, well… private.

In 1999, the star was forced to hold a press conference in his native Hong Kong to address his affair with beauty queen Elaine Ng Yi Lei. She was pregnant with their daughter Etta Ng Chok-lam, and he was married to Taiwanese actress Joan Lin.

He said at the time, “I have made a mistake that many men in the world make.”

Ng is now 24 and living a life of poverty, while her father sits on a $400 million fortune.

In 2022, Malaysian news outlet Malay Mail sighted her in Toronto queuing for free food, and in January she opened up about her relationship with her mother.

"I'd rather be homeless and eat stale bread than go home and reunite with my mother," she told one media outlet.

As for her famous father? “He is not my dad,” she once said. 

“I have no feelings for him. He is my biological father but he is not in my life.”

Her words were stinging, but the treatment dealt to her by both her parents is soul-crushing. And no, it’s got nothing to do with the hundreds of millions her father is worth. 

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It all comes down to her sexuality and his apparent issues with women.

Even Chan’s long-time friend, Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, labelled him “a male chauvinistic pig”. She said, “He always believes that women should stay at home and cook and not do anything.”

Before the release of Chan’s memoir, Ng introduced herself on social media. 

“Hi I'm Jackie Chan's daughter and this is my girlfriend Andi [Autumn, influencer]. We’ve been homeless for a month due to homophobic parents. We pretty much slept under a bridge, and other things.”

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In his memoir, he even failed to make mention of her. It’s as if she doesn’t exist. Yet he managed to address his poor form for the way he treated his wife Joan and son Jaycee. “I've done well by a lot of people but not my own family. I've not been a good father or a good husband but I did my duty to my son and his mother,” he said. Duty? Huh?

The craziest part? He’s happy to let his daughter live on the streets and survive off free meals while he feeds the bellies of others a deems more worthy. He wrote, “I started to carry large amounts of cash at all times. After you live in poverty, cash gives you a sense of security. I like having lots of people around me and every meal was with a big gang.”

For example, “Around 10 years ago I spent $2 million in one year paying for other people's meals. I gave out extravagant gifts too; watches, cars, custom-made leather jackets, cases of expensive wine.”

He’s a ‘good bloke’, to everyone but his own flesh and blood.

Feature Image: Getty/Google

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