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STORY CHERYL ONG PHOTOS EALBERT HO

has much to worry about. In person, the 40-year-old
bare-faced beauty looks like she hasn’t aged a day, Look ma,
something which she attributes to drinking lots of water, no make-up!: Joey goes
going for facials, and well, good genes. bare-faced for her Ch 8
comeback vehicle Reach for
For those who grew up watching TV in the ’90s, Joey the Skies. “Actually, my role
Swee (or Xu Qi for those who know her by her Chinese was meant for Sora Ma.
name) was the vivacious girl-next-door whose larger- So I have to thank her for
than-life personality made her more memorable than leaving [Mediacorp].”
any of the roles she played in Ch 8 dramas like The
Reunion, Women of Times and The Unbeatables III .
The 1997 Star Search semi-finalist left showbiz in
2009 to become a full-time mum after getting pregnant
with her second kid. This year, the still-Swee mother-
of-three will make her showbiz return with not one, but
two shows: Besides Reach, she also stars in upcoming
Toggle web series A Lonely Fish, where she plays um,
22-year-old He Ying Ying’s mother.

8 DAYS: Long time no see. How does it feel being
back in the limelight?
JOEY SWEE: I feel great. I feel wanted. I feel I’m
alive again. I’ve been a housewife for eight years now.
And during that time, I always felt like I’m not a very
important person. My life every day is too routine
— fetch the kids, buy groceries, and even when I’m
teaching the kids, I keep repeating the same thing to
them. For these eight years, I’ve been doing the same
thing over and over again every day. And I also didn’t
bother to doll myself up ’cos there’s no one to look at
me anyway. Then last December, I got the chance to
film A Lonely Fish. During that month of filming, I was
very happy. I felt like a bird that had been released
from my cage. I felt like I had found myself. These past
Time rewind:
Joey crushing on eight years, I’ve been giving my all to my kids that I had
Chen Hanwei in completely lost myself.
Women of Times.
What has it been like being a full-time housewife
and mother?
When I was single, I used to say, “I must marry a very
good husband, then I don’t need to fret about daily
necessities, and I can be a housewife.” Everyone’s
Life’s a gamble: envious that I get to be a housewife. But being a
Joey with Tay housewife is not easy, you know? I don’t have days off,
Ping Hui (far
left) and Allan and most importantly, my days were so routine that I
Wu in The didn’t like it. And yet, nobody said “thank you” to me
Unbeatables III. ’cos they just think that it’s my job. No one showed me
any appreciation. I think all housewives feel the same
way. It’s kind of a lousy feeling. I even forgot that I used
to be pretty. (Laughs)
Why did you decide to make a comeback?
I want to feel loved and appreciated again. (Laughs) I
miss the feeling of being famous and being recognised
[for my acting]. I entered showbiz at 19 years old, and
I was in this industry for over a decade. And I was
appreciated by the public. Whether they loved or hated
me, people were still talking about me. Suddenly, [when
I became a housewife, I lost all of that]. My kids are

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