The mother-daughter duo, in happier times. Sigh. Image: ST file/ Apple Daily
Boy, we didn’t see this coming. Will Jackie Chan ever stop having to fret over family? Fans of the stalwart stuntman, brace yourself for the saddest shenanigans ever, this time involving an allegedly abusive and alcoholic Mum.
Here’s how it all went down. The key player in this distressing domestic drama? 15-year-old Etta Ng, whose teary tell-all in Hong Kong gossip rag Ming Pao Weekly made quite the scurrilous splash this week.
The appalling allegation? Etta says she dialled 999 on her mother because, as a breathless Apple Daily report recounts, she felt she “need[ed] to get help for Mum because I can't help her.”
Said mother is veteran actress and one-time Miss Asia champ Elaine Ng – a name Hong Kong pop culture pundits will recognise from a very public breakdown in the early 90s in which she acknowledged her affair and child with “Cannonball” Chan himself. (Yes, I know, right? Imagine the insanity that would have ensued had this happened in our selfie-snapping, scandal-starved era!)
In any case, what on earth did Elaine do to make her own daughter turn on her? If Apple Daily is to be believed, Etta feared that her Mum’s spirits-swigging ways – Elaine is said to make short work of at least two bottles of hard liquor every night – was endangering both mother and daughter. The plastered woman would attempt to pummel whoever was within reach – and that somebody, sadly, would happen to be Elaine.
Here’s where it gets really heartbreaking: Per the Straits Times, Etta says “being beaten by her mum was all right, as it gave her a reason to get police intervention.” Poor kiddo.
Meanwhile, the persecuted parent hasn’t well, been keeping mum. In a televised talk fresh out on bail, Elaine confessed to i-Cable TV: “I've done something wrong that made [Etta] feel unsafe.”
Other choice quotes from the explosive expose? Elaine says that yes, she sips on a glass of red or two “as an insomnia aid”, but when the men in blue came a-knocking on her door, she spurned the abuse allegations. “That so-called assault,” she said, as she swatted at the shocked interviewer’s arm, “How hard is that?”
The embattled woman is to clock in with the cops come May 11, but in the interim, reports say she will not be granted access to her daughter. (Other sources say police have dug up drugs and other dubious paraphernalia in her home, but we’ll leave that to Elaine’s legal team to sort out.)
Now for the million-dollar question: How is Jackie reacting to this tawdry turn of affairs? If the past is any indication, the patriarch is purse-lipped and peevish as ever. Witness his agent’s terse rejoinder: “I don't know anything.” Story developing …