Quan Yi Fong addresses reputation of being hot-tempered and difficult to work with

Being a celebrity and a diva goes hand-in-hand for many, and host-actress Quan Yi Fong is no stranger to having a fearsome reputation.

People even thought the worst when her then-BFF didn’t make an appearance at her daughter’s 21st birthday bash a couple of years ago, though she was quick to dismiss rumours of a falling-out between them.

In the latest episode of her meWATCH talk show Hear U Out, the host became the interviewee as actor Guo Liang turned up as a guest host to ask her about her fiery temper.

The 54-year-old recalled defending Yi Fong once when asked by someone if she had a “terrible temper” and “quarrelled with everyone”, but didn’t spare the latter in this instance.

He bluntly stated: “I don’t know how true this is, but I’ve heard that you argued with the canteen management, the wardrobe and makeup staff, hair stylists, the production department and other artistes — I haven’t accused you wrongly so far, right?”

Yi Fong, 48, did add a caveat that the arguments happened over a decade ago, but suggested: “Perhaps I had a low EQ (emotional quotient).”

She added that she might have occasionally told others off “for the sake of achieving greater professionalism”, too. If a new assistant producer was assigned to work with her, for example, they would have someone to guide them and were asked at the end of their training if they had been scolded by her.

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And if the wardrobe team gave Yi Fong clothes of the wrong size, there would be hell to pay.

“I’d have told them, ‘Are you blind?’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ‘Say that again!’” she laughed.

Jokes aside, Yi Fong thought she needed to put up a tough front to protect herself.

She admitted: “I believe I was less confident in the past, I wasn’t happy. I was afraid others would see through my sadness and lack of self-esteem.”

She considers herself to have mellowed after her divorce with actor Peter Yu in 2009.

‘My work was something I clung onto like a life vest’

Around that time, Yi Fong also sought medical intervention for the first time after years of struggling with depression. She reckons she had postnatal depression after giving birth to her daughter Eleanor in 1999 which she never fully recovered from.

However, with medication came exorbitant costs.

When asked why she continued working, she revealed: “I had no money. I was on medication that cost me at least a few hundred dollars or even a thousand dollars weekly.

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“The more I saw the doctor, the poorer I got and the more depressed I was.”

She also felt the need to continue contributing to her family back in Taiwan.

Yi Fong also took on a heavy workload as she felt “needed” and could use work as a way to “temporarily get away from my most miserable state”.

“I believe my work was something I clung onto like a life vest,” she said.

After having gone through it herself, she would now advise someone struggling with depression to take a break instead.

Guo Liang recalled: “I remember you’d collapse on the sofa halfway through filming. You didn’t fall asleep, you just seemed very sad and miserable for no apparent reason.”

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Yi Fong responded: “People felt that since I was surrounded by famous talk show hosts like you, Bryan Wong and especially the perpetually cheerful Kym Ng, I should have cheered up, but I felt that all of you didn’t understand me.

“I once opened myself up, but after realising that you couldn’t help me, I shut myself in again and felt even worse then.”

She gave Guo Liang an analogy — the world didn’t seem “dark and dreary”, it was full of light but Yi Fong just couldn’t step out into it.

“I could see it but I couldn’t be free,” she said.

The breakthrough came for Yi Fong when she kept track of her mood daily on a scale of one to 10 and eventually managed to rate it the highest consistently.

She remains confident that she won’t fall into depression again, saying: “I really wasn’t happy at that time but now, external things don’t affect my happiness.

“My happiness is in my own hands, so such things probably won’t happen again.”

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drimac@asiaone.com

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