Love her, hate her, love to hate her, Kim Lim generates so much interest from the general Singapore population, you can’t help but be intrigued by her. Daughter of one of Singapore’s wealthiest people Peter Lim, the entertainment media knows her for her lavish wedding(s) and messy separations. But on a separate note, she is also a successful beauty industry mogul who, through her company KLHealth, has opened medispa Illumia Therapeutics, aesthetics clinic Illumia Medical and skincare line Illumiaskin by Kim Lim. In addition to that, she continues to be a protective and loving mother to son Kyden.
Here we’ve put together 12 things you might not have known about the multi-hyphenate.
Her home life is simple too, it appears. She loves to travel and eat well, but when in Singapore, she eats mostly hawker centre food and home-cooked meals by her nanny, with whom she lives in an apartment in the Orchard Road area. She has previously described herself as an ‘Ah Lian’.
The daughter of billionaire who is an accomplished businesswoman herself, Kim holds court on social media, with over 200,000 Instagram followers and thousands of likes per post. Singaporeans just lap up the peeks into her jetsetting lifestyle on the social media platform, which she joined in 2012.
The 27-year-old socialite is super close to Seungri of K-pop boy group Big Bang fame. She even arranged for Seungri to attend a Valencia match against Real Madrid in 2015 and requested for the band’s hit ‘Fantastic Baby’ to be played during half time.
According to Kim on her Instagram Stories from a few months ago, she doesn’t have anything to do with Seungri’s ongoing Burning Sun scandal despite being named by him in his conversation with his lawyer regarding the issue.
She clarified that while she did indeed go to his club, Arena, in 2015 she did not ask for any girls to party with her.
Read her statement from her insta-stories below:
Despite the luxury afforded to such a wealthy individual, Kim has a very simple style of dressing. “My main priority is comfort. I have heels, but I love sneakers,” she says, before adding, “My dad is a simple guy too, usually in shorts and a T-shirt.”
Kim fought back against enraged supporters of her dad’s football club, Valencia, and even got into an online spat with some of them when they flooded her Instagram account with racist comments. “I’m also not just standing up for myself, but for Asians as a whole,” she said of her critical comments.
Kim often travels to London and she even speaks with a twang that is a mixture of local and British inflections, thanks to the years spent at the all-girl boarding school Queenswood in Hertfordshire, where she was sent when she was 12.
No surprise here. Influenced by her father, she’s greatly involved in charity work, volunteering regularly at the Apex Day Rehabilitation Centre for the Elderly at Bukit Merah View. “I would pack and distribute food to the old folks every year. It’s very enjoyable and I like spending time with them,” she says.
She has also lent a helping hand in Mongolia, where she travelled to last year in a bid to build houses for those less fortunate than her.
“Now that I am a mum, it made me realise that kids depend on us for everything and it is important for them to have a good childhood,” says the mum-of-one to Kyden, who she gave birth to in 2017.
The animal lover has an army of pampered pooches at home. Kim owns four dogs – two French bulldogs (five-year-old Wei Wei and three-year-old Smallie), five-year-old cocker spaniel Basil and 3½-year-old English bulldog Cookie. Just a few years ago, she roped in some celebrity friends to launch a fundraising calendar for an animal welfare group.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kim at a Pandora event in 2017. That’s us in the picture above along with fashion influencer and street style star, Yoyo Cao, on the right. As you can see, Kim is tall, like really tall. Her official height is listed at 1.7 metres so she has a good 10 centimetres on me at least. While on paper that doesn’t sound like much, she obviously towers over many people IRL dontcha think?
Kim may not be a celebrity but as a major social media influencer, she’s got lots of clout. So much so that she has fronted a few brands including Kowayo Aesthetics and HABA. She was also the style ambassador for Digital Fashion Week in 2014.
Kim’s stepmother is local actress Cherie Lim. Her father, Peter Lim married Cherie in 2003.
According to her interview with 8 Days, the socialite revealed that she was struggling with her weight and insecurities back in school.
In the interview, Kim said, “I have my insecurities. Do you know, in primary school, I was in the TAF club?”. She continued to say that she was often bullied in school and people would call her fat.
Kim eventually worked through her eating disorder when she started developing really bad gastric problems.
Now, Kim eats healthily and tries to work out more often. We’re glad to see that she’s doing well!
This post was updated on July 21, 2019.