TAIPEI, March 23 — Before he could marry Liu Shishi, Nicky Wu was forced to do something rather unusual.
Due to a technical hitch, the Taiwanese singer and actor had to legally marry his first wife Chinese actress Ma Yashu, and then divorce her once again, Taiwan’s Apple Daily reported yesterday citing an interview given by Wu’s mother to a Bali newspaper on Monday.
The revelation came to light after the mother of the groom agreed to speak about the couple’s wedding a day after their lavish nuptials on the Indonesian resort island.
According to the report, she was apologetic about the fact Wu and Ma never held a formal wedding reception during their three-year marriage.
Wu’s mother was quoted as saying, “He wasn’t doing very well, he had shows but wasn’t very popular, so he didn’t really give her a wedding, didn’t give her those.”
Wu, who rose to fame in boy band Little Tigers before he switched to acting, worked to pay off his father’s debts of NT$80 million (RM9.8 million), from about 1989 to 2001.
Ma even once said on a Taiwan television show that she had paid for her own engagement ring and that they had done a “roadside bridal shoot”.
The couple failed to register their marriage in Taiwan, after Wu was “interrogated like a criminal” for submitting an application for a Taiwan entry permit for Ma, his mother confirmed.
The two divorced (for the first time) in 2009.
So Wu had no choice but to agree to the legal manoeuvre when complications arose when he and Liu wanted to register their marriage in Taiwan after obtaining marriage certificates in the mainland last year, said the report.
The 45-year-old actor met 29-year-old Liu when they co-starred together in the 2011 hit time-travelling drama, Scarlet Heart.
The couple’s destination wedding, as witnessed by 350 family and close friends, at Bali’s Avana Resort and Spa is reported to have cost 20 million yuan.
Ma, meanwhile, is now married to Australian billionaire, James Robert Hayes.
