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Popular Singapore television actor Chew Chor Meng (pictured) has muscular dystrophy. The actor with MediaCorp, Channel NewsAsia's parent company, disclosed this at a Christmas event in church on Dec. 12.
Chew said when he first learnt about his illness, he tried to hide it from his wife and two young daughters - aged two and six - for fear of worrying them. Muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease. While not life-threatening, it is incurable and causes progressive muscle weakness.
"It's unfortunate I have this illness. I can still go on with my daily life, but I may age faster than a normal person. In the next seven, 10, 15 years, it may be harder for me to move around," he said.
Chew began his acting career with MediaCorp nearly 20 years ago after he won the bi-annual nationwide talent contest 'Star Search'. Since then, he has starred in numerous Mandarin dramas and crossed over to star in local English sitcom 'Mr Kiasu'.
In 2000, he was voted Best Actor in the Star Awards for his role in 'Hainan Kopi Tales'. Chew is also a well-known face in Malaysia and has gone on to host major events locally and abroad.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From Channel NewsAsia:
