With his beloved role as Singapore’s favourite Ah Beng contractor in Phua Chu Kang, we tend to feel most of us know actor-comedian Gurmit Singh very well.
But in new CNA series The Assembly, the 59-year-old opened up to 23 neurodivergent individuals who were given the opportunity to interview him in a no-holds-barred manner.
From his childhood to his life in the public eye, what stood out the most was when the actor was asked about accepting his oldest daughter, Gabrielle, 27, for being a queer icon in Singapore.
Gabrielle is a drag and burlesque performer and goes by the name Lychee Bye.
The comedian, who can be notoriously private with reporters, is seen giving a serene look before saying: “So she has taken that path, and it was difficult at first because she’s in the queer community.”
“She does a show that’s not TV-friendly, for sure,” admits Gurmit, which suggests he is probably not fully on board with her choices in life.
Gurmit and his wife, Melissa Wong, 54, also have two other kids, Elliot, 22, and Mikaela, 11.
Gurmit last took the stage with Gabrielle at the Watch It Wet – NDP 2024 Watch Party last year.
“But at the end of the day, she’s still my daughter. Until the day I die, I will still love her,” Gurmit says with tears in his eyes.
Gurmit goes on to say he and Gabrielle have “differing opinions of things, career paths, and life choices. But she’s still my flesh and blood.”
“I’ll still be there in a blink of an eye if she needs me,” he adds.
Gurmit also reflects on his own upbringing, recalling that his own parents had high hopes of him in the past and laughs that they had “high hopes for me to become a lawyer, judge, or a policeman.”
And then I became a comedian, an actor,” he adds.
As a parent, Gurmit says, “As long as she is happy, I’m happy. It may not be what I want her to be, or what I had hoped she would choose, but as long as it’s legal, and she’s happy, I’m happy with it.”
When asked whether he worries about Gabrielle’s physical safety and mental wellbeing since coming out as queer, Gurmit shares that Gabrielle “used to be very, very shy” and “afraid of how people think about her”.
However, he believes that her orientation has helped her overcome that.
Gurmit also says that he feels that Gabrielle “used to be ashamed of her body” but being part of the LGBT community “has made her less like that”
Now, he says, Gabrielle is “proud of her skin, what she is, and how she is” and that that he “can kind of appreciate where she is now as far as mental wellbeing is [concerned].
In 2014, when Gabrielle was 17, she went viral for penning an open letter to fast fashion retailer, Forever 21, calling them out for playing a misogynist rap song in their stores.