Hong Kong-born pop singer and song writer, CoCo Lee, known for her successful international music career and performing at the Oscars, died in a hospital on Wednesday, 5th July 2023, following a suicide attempt at her home over the weekend.
According to her sisters, Nancy and Carol, who announced Lee’s death in an Instagram post, they opened up on the singer’s “multiyear struggle with her mental health.”
Although, Coco sought professional help and did her best to fight depression, sadly that demon inside of her took the better of her,” they said.
The Hong Kong-born singer, who voiced the heroine Fa Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney’s Mulan, was described in tributes as a “brave pioneer” and a “musical legend”.
In March 2022, she posted about having to relearn how to walk after undergoing surgery for an old leg injury.
Also in December 2022, Lee posted on Instagram saying she was getting through an “incredibly difficult year”.
“Love & Faith – my two favourite words that I carry strongly in my heart which I desperately needed to get through this incredibly difficult year,” she said;
“Life seemed unbearable at times, but I adapted the attitude of a ‘female warrior’ to face them head on fearlessly,” the caption read.
Ferren Lee, popularly known as Coco Lee, was born in Hong Kong in 1975, she moved to the US with her mother and sister, attended school in San Francisco. Lee later returned to Hong Kong, where she pursued a music career.
She won the first runner-up in an annual singing competition held by broadcaster TVB in Hong Kong and signed with Sony Music Entertainment in 1996.
Her eponymous debut album became the best-selling album of that year in Asia and her English song, “Do You Want My Love” charted in the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Dance Breakouts chart in December 1999.
She also performed the Oscar-nominated song “A Love Before Time” from the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee was married to Bruce Rockowitz, a Canadian businessman who is the former CEO of Hong Kong supply chain company Li & Fung, in 2011.
The couple did not have children together, though she was a stepmother to Rockowtiz’s two children.
Story: Christy Dung