Zoe Tay ‘Forced’ Chris Lee To Propose? The Star Awards Moments That Had Everyone Talking
Plus, the Star Awards’ version of the Oscar selfie and a jaw-dropping kiss
By Lyla Lee -
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For some reason we’ll always remember Vivian Lai and Kate Pang kissing… On the lips.
I grew up with Channel 8 dramas the way some people grew up on Disney Channel (because my parents refused to get cable, but that’s another story for another day).
Ask any 90s kid and they’ll probably tell you that Star Awards night was our version of the Oscars. The gowns, the tears, the “wah, this one will win meh?” debates at home — it was an annual, very emotional affair. In fact, I still remember persuading my parents to let me do my homework later just so I could watch my girl crush Felicia Chin make it into the Top 10.
As Star Awards 2026 rolls around (it’s slated for April 19, 2026), here’s a throwback to the drama, laughter, and chaos that have defined local showbiz’s biggest night over the years.
Star Awards 2005: Zoe Tay “forcing” Christopher Lee to propose to Fann Wong on stage
At the 2005 Star Awards, Christopher Lee was on stage giving his Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes acceptance speech when Ah Jie Zoe Tay jokingly pressured him to propose to Fann.
Chris looked visibly stressed, caught between variety-show banter and a very real relationship milestone, while the cameras hunted for Fann’s reaction. Fann, clearly mortified, did what every paiseh girl would do — she bolted from the theatre in a panic, leaving behind one of the most chaotic moments in Star Awards history.
Star Awards 2006: Nick Cheung to Li Nanxing: “Why do you win every year?”
Hongkong actor Nick Cheung did the unthinkable and turned the ceremony into a live TV roast.
He asked why Li Nanxing seemed to win every single year, before cheekily pressing on: was LNX related to the boss, and has he checked his birth certificate to see if the boss was his real dad? It was gloriously savage in that very Cantonese-comic way, and the whole theatre burst into laughter — because deep down, we really had all been wondering the exact same thing.
Star Awards 2007: Zheng Geping wins his first Best Actor Award
After decades of supporting roles and shirtless scenes, Zheng Geping finally bagged Best Actor. It was a victory for every veteran who never gave up on their craft — and our mums collectively swooned.
Star Awards 2008: The Star Awards that... never happened?!
The Star Awards was traditionally held in December. But Mediacorp decided to permanently reschedule the ceremony to the following April to align with the full calendar-year eligibility period from Jan 1 to Dec 31.
That meant that there was no ceremony in 2008. I was 12, impatient, and downright livid because that meant I had to wait five more months.
Star Awards 2009: The Little Nyonya era
The nation’s obsession with The Little Nyonya in 2008 spilled over to the awards — the drama swept every major category, with the likes of Jeanette Aw, Joanne Peh, Ng Hui and Xiang Yun walking away with armfuls of trophies. We all wanted to be Peranakan after that.
With its spin-off Emerald Hill in the running for multiple categories this year, we’re looking forward to seeing what it’ll bag.
Star Awards 2010: Year of firsts
Veteran Zhu Houren clinched his first-ever trophy after 16 years of Star Awards ceremonies. Constance Song finally got her Best Supporting Actress win after 12 years. And Dennis Chew — yes, Auntie Lucy herself — took home his first Top 10 Male Artiste award after 24 years (he was 13 when he first started acting). Talk about perseverance paying off.
Star Awards 2011: Xiang Yun’s cleavage-bearing outfit
Xiang Yun turned heads with a plunging black dress that had everyone (including her) talking. She collected her All-Time Favourite Artiste award from then-President S R Nathan, which made her feel even more paiseh.
“It was cut so low, and part of me did not dare to walk out wearing that. It was a bit embarrassing, but thankfully, it had a piece of skin-coloured mesh material in front,” she said.
Star Awards 2012: Vivian Lai and Kate Pang kissing… on the lips
If there’s anything to top all the outrageous moments in Star Awards history, Vivian Lai and Kate Pang’s girl-on-girl action would be it.
I remember vividly that I was 16 when this happened — and conservative viewers (aka my parents) lost their minds.
That one-second peck happened when Vivian was announced as one of the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes, and caused such a huge uproar that even MDA was involved.
Needless to say, the kiss was edited out in the repeat telecast, leaving only those who watched it live to remember just how explosive that moment really was.
Star Awards 2013: Saying goodbye to Huang Wenyong
The 60-year-old actor had passed away just days before the awards, due to lymphoma (a type of blood cancer). When his longtime on-screen partner and close personal friend Xiang Yun accepted his Top 10 trophy on behalf of his family, the entire theatre — and the nation — teared up.
Among the many who rose to their feet a quiet mark of respect was then-Finance Minister, now-Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.
Star Awards 2014: Romeo Tan wins first Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes Award
After four years in the industry, the 2010 Star Search third runner-up finally scored his first Star Awards trophy.
Onstage, Romeo delivered the classic safe-template speech — thanking friends, fans, family and loved ones — and yes, it sounded a little rehearsed, but to be fair, who wouldn’t practise in front of the mirror for a moment like that?
What matters is how far he’s come since: our boy-next-door has since levelled up to All-Time Favourite Artiste status, clinching his tenth Top 10 Most Popular Male Artiste award in 2025 and cementing his place as one of the defining faces of Mediacorp.
Star Awards 2015: Jeanette Aw falling down the stairs
Hollywood has Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars; we have Jeanette Aw at the Star Awards — equally mortifying in the moment, but instantly immortalised as one of those “even goddesses can fall” clips we’ll replay forever.
That year, Vivian Lai and Jeanette were crowned All-Time Favourite Artistes, and both arrived in sweeping gowns designed for maximum impact. As they made their way down the stairs to receive the award, Jeanette tripped over her dress and went down hard, prompting nearby artistes to rush over and help her up while the entire theatre let out a collective gasp.
Star Awards 2016: The Dream Makers II sweeping seven awards; Jeanette Aw calling out a Mediacorp senior exec
2016 was the year The Dream Makers II basically hijacked the Star Awards, sweeping seven trophies including Best Drama Serial, Best Actor (Qi Yuwu), Best Actress (Jeanette Aw), both supporting acting awards, Young Talent and Best Theme Song.
But the night will always be remembered for Jeanette’s Best Actress win, and that ice-cold, perfectly controlled clapback in her speech: “To this Mediacorp senior executive who said ‘fat hope’ when asked to predict my chances… Hope has always been slim or even non-existent for me. But I guess today, against all odds, there’s still hope.”
Yikes. Guess we can safely assume that the Mediacorp exec was not part of the judging panel.
Star Awards 2017: Zoe Tay bags Best Actress after 21 years since her last win in 1996
2017 felt like a homecoming for Ah Jie. It hadn’t been an easy wait for Zoe, who first won Best Actress back in 1996 for her portrayal of Zhou Xiaodan in The Golden Pillow.
So when she finally clinched her second Best Actress award for her role as a cancer-stricken nurse manager in You Can Be An Angel 2, she was ecstatic.
On stage, she cradled the trophy and joked, “I’ve given birth to three kids since we last met!”
Star Awards 2018: Jin Yinji wins her first Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes award
2018 was the year our “National Grandma” Jin Yinji finally got what she deserved — and honestly, it was about time.
After more than three decades of being the forever-granny, kaypoh auntie, comic relief and emotional backbone of countless Channel 8 dramas, she finally clinched her first Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes award.
The year before, she had very candidly aired her unhappiness about the painful experience negotiating her contract with Mediacorp, and there was this collective sense among viewers that the media giant really needed to do better by its veterans.
Star Awards 2019: Tribute to Aloysius Pang
2019’s Star Awards had one of those segments that made everything else that night feel a bit trivial.
Earlier that year, Aloysius Pang had passed away at just 28 after a military training accident, and his passing shook not just the industry, but anyone who’d grown up watching him on TV.
At the ceremony, the lights dimmed and a tribute video of his childhood photos and behind-the-scenes clips played on the big screen, while his NoonTalk peers Xu Bin, Timothee Yap, Zong Zijie and Gavin Teo performed a rearranged version of 小人物的心声 (Voices From The Heart).
Star Awards 2020: Non-existent, no thanks to COVID-19
Even the Star Awards couldn’t escape COVID-19’s chaos. For the first time since the show shifted to an April slot in 2008, there was no glitzy ceremony that month.
For those of us who’d built our internal clocks around “April = Star Awards season”, it felt strangely disorienting.
Star Awards 2021: Elvin Ng’s bandung suit… And tons of memes
Just as we thought the crazy pandemic was over and nothing could shock us anymore. But trust Elvin Ng to give us something delightfully unhinged to talk about.
He turned up in that now-infamous Alexander McQueen white-fade-to-burgundy suit, which instantly made netizens go feral with memes, likening his OOTD to bandung, an ombre cake, and, less kindly, a used tampon.
Even Elvin gamely leaned into the joke afterwards, posting about bandung cravings and later acknowledging that some of the comparisons were “a bit offensive”, but also insisting that fashion should be fun and not taken too seriously.
Star Awards 2022: Chen Hanwei accidentally referred to Mickey Huang as Jacky Wu
Chen Hanwei was solo-hosting that year and was in the middle of announcing the Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes when he turned to Taiwanese guest presenter Mickey Huang (who had appeared as a hologram)… And confidently called him Jacky Wu instead. For a split second, you could feel the air leave the room.
Hanwei, to his credit, immediately apologised loudly and repeatedly, babbling that he was too nervous about the upcoming winners and had mixed up the names in his head. Mickey, ever the pro, laughed it off and shot back, “Don’t think I can’t hear you just because I’m in Taiwan!”
Star Awards 2023: Das DD’s emotional acceptance speech
#JustSwipeLah’s Das DD made history as the first Indian to win a Star Award, clinching the Best Rising Star trophy — and promptly melting down in the most endearing way possible.
“Wah, I’m so shocked I almost forgot how to speak Chinese,” he blurted, before proceeding to deliver a fluent Mandarin speech that frankly put many of us to shame, thanking the team for trusting him to host a Chinese show and taking a gamble on someone like him.
Voice trembling, eyes glassy, he admitted, “If I were you, I wouldn’t have picked me either,” a line so raw that you could see co-star Xixi Lim tearing in the audience (and many of us at home crying along too).
Star Awards 2024: Dennis Chew and his Taylor Swift-inspired friendship bands
2024 was the year where almost every Singaporean was high on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Dennis Chew included.
While everyone else was dripping in diamonds, the host showed up with both arms stacked full of Taylor Swift‑inspired friendship bracelets, each one carefully beaded with the names of all 151 Star Awards 2024 nominees.
Up close, you could spot designs labelled “Star Awards”, his own name, and Guo Liang’s. How sweet.
Star Awards 2025: Chow Yun Fat inviting veteran artistes on stage for an impromptu selfie
Chow Yun Fat’s Star Awards 2025 appearance felt like Singapore TV finally getting its own Oscars moment. Before presenting the final Top 10 Most Popular awards, the Hongkong legend looked around the theatre, spotted the familiar faces who had been there with him at the very first Star Awards in 1994, and decided he wasn’t wasting the reunion on a simple handshake.
He promptly invited veteran artistes like Zoe Tay, Li Nanxing, Chen Liping, Aileen Tan and Pan Ling Ling up on stage, squeezed everyone in around him, stretched his arm out and snapped an impromptu selfie — a chaotic, joy-filled wefie that instantly became the image of the night.