Chen Yixin says growing up as actress Xiang Yun’s daughter led to depression and anxiety as a child
Joanne Soh
The Straits Times
March 22, 2026
It is not easy growing up as the offspring of famous parents, says local actress-model Chen Yixin.
The daughter of home-grown celebrity couple Xiang Yun and Edmund Chen has opened up about being ostracised in school, and how public scrutiny and the inability to handle such situations at a young age led to her developing depression and anxiety.
The 25-year-old and her actress-mother Xiang Yun, 64, were guests on the inaugural March 19 episode of new YouTube talk show DNA hosted by local actress Rebecca Lim.
The mother-and-daughter duo opened up about public scrutiny, school struggles, online criticism and the pressures of fame on family life.
Xiang Yun and former actor Chen, 65, have an older son, actor-artist Chen Xi, 34.
As a child, Yixin recalled how hard it was to process why people felt “entitled” to know their family’s private matters. While it was unclear how old she was then, she shared that all she wanted was to “fit in”.
However, she experienced ostracism in school, though she qualified that “a lot of the time, it was probably something I pressured myself into thinking”.
“I withdrew from a lot of people because I felt they knew more about me than I knew about them,” said Yixin, who made her acting debut in the Channel 8 drama While We Are Young (2017).
Xiang Yun added that parents of her children’s classmates would gossip about her and her husband as they were public figures.
“The classmates would repeat what they heard at home, and spread the gossip to my kids,” said the veteran artiste, adding that her celebrity friends’ children experienced a similar kind of “bullying” too.
She added how she and Edmund Chen were concerned about why Yixin hated going to school and would come home crying all the time. They tried speaking to her teachers, who said it was out of their hands.
“As parents, we could not scold other people’s children or question why they treated Yixin a certain way. We could only encourage her to ignore them,” said Xiang Yun, who has received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at Star Awards 2026 for her performance in The Gift Of Time (2025).
Yixin explained that it was difficult to handle “complex emotions at that young age”, adding that she did not know how to manage people talking about her family or why people did not like her.
“I guess that was why I was constantly crying, as I felt so frustrated,” she said. “As a kid, it was hard having to experience very heavy emotions. I did not know that I had depression. I did not know that I had anxiety issues.”
Yixin, who also appeared in the Channel 8 drama All That Glitters (2023), said things improved when she entered polytechnic, where she pursued psychology and applied drama.
“I met a lot of people who shared the same interest as me, and accepted me for who I am... And slowly, I crawled out of my shell.”
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