“A Toad Has Eaten A Swan’s Meat”: Says Businessman Who Just Married The 'Goddess Of Taiwanese Dramas'

Thanks to her appearances in many of Taiwan's long-running dialect dramas, actress Athena Lee Yen, 41, is known to many as the ‘Goddess of Taiwanese Dramas’.

Recently, she surprised her fans by revealing that she tied the knot with her businessman beau, Chen Mao Rong, 48, on May 16.

During an interview with Taiwanese media, Athena shared that they had planned to register their marriage on ‘520’ (May 20), which is also known as Chinese Valentine's Day as 5-2-0 sounds similar to ‘I love you’ in Mandarin.

But since May 20th falls on a Saturday, Mao Rong made the decision to register their marriage four days before that, a boss move that Athena described as “very cool”.

Athena also took to Facebook to announce the good news.

“Today was an amazing day! A relationship is just like that. We hope to help each other become better versions of ourselves. Xindian’s Mr Chen, he’s my love. I’ve always said that I like men who are responsible and dependable. I’m not just announcing our relationship, I’ve also decided to spend my life with him!”

Her husband went on to leave a very sweet message in her comments section.

He wrote: “My Xiao Jiu Jiu (his nickname for Athena) told me ‘You’ll never find another girl who treats you better than me’. I thought about it and realised it’s true. If I don’t tie her down now, I’ll probably have to live the rest of my life alone! So we took the most efficient route and went to the marriage registry today to hand them our identity cards. We used to be business partners, and now we’ve upgraded to being life partners."

He then likened his love story to "a toad that has eaten a swan’s meat", which is a Chinese phrase used to describe an unattractive man who lusts over a beautiful woman.

Though the couple have yet to make any plans for a wedding, they will travel to the Maldives in July for their honeymoon.

This is Athena’s second marriage. She married Changhua County politician Hsieh Dien Lin in 2015, but they split after less than two years together.

Mao Rong, similarly, was also married to a non-celeb.

Athena and Mao Rong have known each other for 18 years, and are partners in a skincare business. Though the couple have worked together for a long time, they only started dating a year ago.

Besides having years of experience in the skincare and beauty industries, Mao Rong is the owner of the online platform Gocampfun, which sells camping goods. The site has nearly 300K followers on social media.

Photos: Chinapress, Athena Lee Yen/ Facebook, Athena Lee Yen/ Instagram