Taiwanese host Matilda Tao’s 17-year-old son Li Wu is studying in Singapore, where their home once had its electricity cut off after she missed a utilities payment. Asked about the incident during a telephone interview with Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) on the afternoon of 4 November, she burst out laughing: “It was really so funny. I kept looking for the bill but couldn’t find it, and I didn’t know how to pay either. I never imagined they would just cut off the power.”
Tao said a neighbour helped pay the bill after the power was cut, and she then transferred the money to the neighbour. Her son later moved into a hostel, leaving her with no more electricity bills to worry about.
Like her son, Tao is now studying in Singapore. She is pursuing a Chinese-language Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), shuttling between Taiwan and Singapore for two weeks of classes here every other month.
Her secret to staying energised while juggling family, work and studies is a balanced diet and enough sleep. She feels she can still manage her busy life, but joked: “I’m now old enough to enjoy a kind of exemption — I can play dumb.”
She will return to her role as a singer at the Songs That Keep Us Together 3 Concert on 15 November, performing classic hits alongside Lee E-jun, Chris Yu, Cyndi Chaw, Linda Wong, Chang Ho-chirl, Ma Yu-fen and Wang Rui-yu. Her son will be in the audience, and she is looking forward to having his favourite burgers with him after the show.
Tao said her 17-year-old son is still happy to hold her hand when they go out, while her 20-year-old daughter is like a close girlfriend who listens to her share her feelings. Her best listener at home, however, is the family dog. “I talk to the dog a lot. My husband is always so tired when he comes home from filming that he just collapses into bed.”
The pain and pleasure of returning to school
Returning to school after 36 years, Tao told Zaobao that she has repeatedly asked herself why she signed up since classes began.
With a rueful laugh, she said: “It’s so exhausting and stressful, and the main thing is that there are exams. I think NUS has pretty strict rules. I’d heard that other courses were apparently just about drinking and making friends, but this isn’t like that. You have to make the most of all your classes, meet a 75% attendance requirement and sit the exams. That really shocked me, but I’ve learnt so much and I’m really happy.”
Accounting left her bewildered on her first day of class. “I couldn’t understand it on the first day. On the second day, I seemed to get it. On the third day, I went over it again and didn’t understand it. On the fourth day, before the exam, I understood everything in the lecturer’s final revision session, so I should be able to score over 90.”
Her classmates include people with impressive backgrounds. Matilda Tao met the boss of a listed Taiwanese company, received some investment tips and made a profit on shares, which she used to pay her tuition fees. She has not released a new album since Thanks to Momoko in 2018. “Once I make more money from shares, I’ll invest it in my own album,” she said.
Her looks offer protection from AI
AI is permeating the entertainment industry, but Tao does not feel threatened because she has never relied on conventional good looks in her career. She joked: “AI probably wouldn’t want to create someone who looks like me, so I feel as though I have an exemption.”
While doing research for her radio programme, she once spent two full days watching AI-generated dramas. She found their formulas much the same: the themes were invariably time travel or reversals of fortune, and the protagonists were mostly domineering bosses. “After watching for a while, you don’t want to keep going.”
Tao, who has been following Pursuit of Jade and Against the Current this year, said: “AI characters imitate Zhang Linghe a little, with a bit of this person’s looks and a bit of that person’s. After a while, they leave you cold. I think that for dramas starring actors such as Zhang Linghe and Liu Xueyi, the script is still very important. No matter how handsome you are, if the script is terrible, it’s hard to capture people’s hearts.”
Preparing her daughter for criticism
Her radio work has given Tao broad musical tastes, and she has also been following new South Korean girl group A2O LITE, which recently shot to fame. The nine members have an average age of 15, with the youngest just 13.
How would Tao react if her own child wanted to enter show business before reaching adulthood? She said: “My daughter might take this path. I’ve warned her that cyberbullying is terrifying these days. I told her: ‘Build up your music production skills first. You’re not relying on your looks anyway. If people still criticise your appearance, you need to have a thick skin.’ She does feel it, because online abuse now comes so fiercely, in such volume and so quickly.”
Tao’s trick for dealing with negative comments online is to “scroll past without reading”. Rather than reading abusive posts and becoming depressed, she believes it is better to read something constructive, such as information about the world economy, politics and investment. “You’ll gain more that way. You have that same hour as everyone else, so whatever you do, don’t spend it wearing yourself down.”
But if her children are the targets of online abuse, she will “go into battle”. In the middle of this year, she stepped in to hit back at trolls who made malicious comments about her son’s appearance. She said in the interview: “Once I decide to fight, I certainly won’t go easy on them.”
As the interview drew to a close, Tao changed the subject. “Help me put the word out. I really enjoy performing in Singapore. Come and book me!”
LHZB and 96.3 Hao FM are the official publicity media partners for the Songs That Keep Us Together 3 Concert.
▲Songs That Keep Us Together 3 Concert
Date: Sunday (15 November 2026)
Time: 5pm
Venue: Resorts World Convention Centre
Ticket prices: $198, $168, $148, $128, $108, $88 (excluding booking fees)
Ticketing platforms: bookmyshow.sg, fantopia.io
