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she’s like a ball of unlimited
energy, the kind that if she were a
character in a Marvel movie, she
would definitely be an Infinity
Stone. Or that thing that powers
Iron Man’s suit. When we ask
her what time she goes to bed
every night, she chirps, “I don’t! I
can survive on hardly any sleep
actually. Perhaps I’m a vampire.”
Her peppiness is why photos
shoots with her are always an
experience, and why we find it
so disconcerting to see her so
subdued today.
True story: 10 years ago at a
ow, this is something you don’t see cover shoot, Fiona, at the behest of
at a photo shoot: Fiona Xie, quiet our stylist, gamely smeared cake
and sitting still. all over her face… and started a
It’s November and today is one mini food fight in the Presidential
of those gawdawful Singapore Suite of the Marina Mandarin. We
days where it’s wet and humid one can almost still taste the whipped
minute and hot and humid the cream.
next. There’s a reason Fiona Xie is There’s no whipped cream
behaving so uncharacteristically: today. There is, though, a pink
she’s down with the flu, which may elephant in the room that we
or may not have been caused by cannot ignore. A few weeks ago,
the crappy weather. “My whole she had lopped off her long hair
family is sick too,” she sighs, the (“I haven’t cut it in more than 10
cold medicine she had taken earlier years,” she says) and now sports a
possibly kicking in now. short, angular bob — no, it is not a
She’s never been one to sit wig — that was first dyed platinum
still. It’s a statement you can take but now has been coloured
figuratively — before she returned Millennial pink especially for the
to Singapore in 2016, she was jet- 8 DAYS shoot today. It makes
setting around the world, setting Fiona, so recognisable a star, look
up base for brief periods of time instantly unrecognisable. We had
in Shanghai, Hongkong, Tokyo. In done a double take when we
the next few months, she plans to bumped into her at an event a few
travel to Bhutan, LA, San Francisco, days after the big snip, and she had
New York, London and Berlin. We giddily described her new haircut,
feel jetlagged just from typing that or rather the process of chopping
sentence. off her tresses, as “a rebirth”.
She’s also not one to sit still in But before we can actually get
the most literal sense. talking about FX’s metamorphosis,
Everyone who’s ever worked or, you know, talking for that
with Fiona would attest to how matter, she needs to get well first.T

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