Chi Pu, the singer Vietnam’s music elite rejected before China changed the verdict

Chi Pu

Photo: TV HUB – Giải Trí / CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Born	June 14, 1993 Hanoi, Vietnam
Occupation	Singer, actress
Known for	Friend Zone
Awards	Weibo Gala · Asia Artist Awards · Ride the Wind

For years Chi Pu was the pop singer Vietnam’s music establishment would not accept as a singer. When she switched from acting to music, some of the country’s best-known vocalists lined up to say she had no right to the word, and her live vocals became a running joke online. The verdict that changed her career came from abroad, on a Chinese reality show where audiences cared less about a perfect high note than about nerve, stagecraft and stamina. She is still answering the question she was asked at home, now with a debut album, a Chinese fan base and a lead role in one of Vietnam’s biggest film franchises.

Nguyễn Thùy Chi grew up in Hanoi, where she was born on 14 June 1993, the younger daughter of a father in the army and a mother who taught English; her only sister is eleven years older. She learned piano, and in 2003 won first prize at the Hanoi organ festival. After high school she finished an English foundation course at RMIT University, then put her studies on hold. A place in the top 20 of Miss Teen Vietnam 2009 turned her into one of the country’s first online “hot girls” long before she had a profession.

That profession was acting at first. In 2013 she played Princess Nana in the sitcom 5S Online, appeared in the feature Thần tượng (The Talent) and co-produced the short Cô gái trên tầng thượng (Under One Sky), which won the Golden Kite for best short film the following year. She moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 2014, wrote, co-directed and starred in My Sunshine, a short in support of the LGBT community, and in 2015 took her first lead in a feature with Yêu, playing a girl who wants to be a singer and falls for her best friend. She won bronze on Dancing with the Stars Vietnam and in 2016 picked up a rookie award at the first Asia Artist Awards in Seoul.

The switch came in October 2017. Từ hôm nay (Feel Like Ooh), written for her by Korean composers, opened a run of music videos released weeks apart, among them Em sai rồi anh xin lỗi em đi. The reaction from inside the industry was immediate. Thanh Lam, Mỹ Linh, Tóc Tiên and Văn Mai Hương were among the singers who objected, Hương Tràm attacked her on social media, and the composer Minh Quân suggested the Department of Performing Arts should stop her from performing. The department’s deputy director replied that there were no grounds to do so. Lam Trường and Noo Phước Thịnh defended her, and the audience kept watching. Anh ơi ở lại (2019) passed 92 million views on YouTube, according to Forbes, which put her on its 2020 list of Asia-Pacific’s 100 digital stars. Em nói anh rồi, written by the Korean drama-soundtrack composer Park Jeong-wook with choreography by 1Million Dance Studio, and Cung đàn vỡ đôi in 2020 kept her on the charts.

The criticism was not all snobbery. Her weak breath support on high notes was real, several televised performances were judged failures, and audiences caught her lip-syncing, including at 88rising’s online Double Happiness festival in 2020. Her own words made things worse: on VTV6 in 2017 she was quoted as saying that in Vietnam anyone who picks up a microphone is called a singer. The full sentence was a comparison with Korea, where pop performers are split into singers, idols and other categories, and Vietnam had no word for an entertainer like her. In 2021 VTV singled her out in a report on what the title of artist is worth. In August 2022 she announced five videos in five months; after Black Hickey, Sashimi and Miss Showbiz she stopped, and the promised debut album was shelved. Sashimi, written by Hứa Kim Tuyền, was condemned as vulgar, and VTV returned to her in a programme on offensive songs. The objection to her voice was never fully answered. What changed was the stage she was judged on.

In 2023 Mango TV cast her among the 33 contestants of Sisters Who Make Waves, the fourth season of China’s talent show for female stars. Older contestants coached her Chinese. She finished with the sixth-highest score in the final on 22 July, won its fan-favourite and overcoming-challenges awards, and took a place in the 11-member group formed at the end. Amber Liu, the former f(x) member, became a stage partner and friend. Videos tagged with her name passed 320 million views on Douyin, according to the Global Times, and she sang with Huang Xiaoming at Hunan TV’s New Year’s Eve gala. In 2024 she released Finding You, again with Hứa Kim Tuyền, in Vietnamese and Chinese versions with the Chinese model and actor Fan Zhixin in the video, followed in October by Flexible, an English-language EP of three songs, Modern Medusa, Waste Time and Drive Slow, made with RYCE Entertainment, the company that manages her in China.

The album she shelved in 2022 finally arrived on 14 June 2026. EXs collects nine songs about past loves and past versions of herself, opening with MIRROR, a dance-pop and EDM track written by Vũ Phụng Tiên and produced by 2Pillz, its video shot in China. For the first time she co-wrote songs herself, 55 and Quên em đi, both with Vũ Phụng Tiên. Amber Liu flew to Ho Chi Minh City to sing Tin được không? with her at the launch, and the hidden track, Thiên đường cô đơn, turned out to be a song she had put out four years earlier under the secret alias Loli. On 1 August she was the only Vietnamese artist at the Weibo Gala in Kuala Lumpur, where she premiered the new song Chưa bao giờ and received the gala’s All-Round Stage Charismatic Artist award.

She has kept acting along the way, in the horror film Mười: Lời nguyền trở lại and in Chị Chị Em Em, the 2019 thriller in which she played Bảo Nhi opposite Thanh Hằng. Her early relationship with the singer Cường Seven ended in 2013, and she has called the singer Gil Lê, her co-star in Yêu, family. This year she said she had once chosen her career over marriage, and that she would not give up performing if a man demanded it.

Her next stage is a cinema screen. Chị Chị Em Em 3 (Sister Sister 3), directed by Nguyễn Hữu Hoàng and produced by Will Vũ, moves the franchise to the quan họ folk-song country of Bắc Ninh, with Chi Pu as Thị Nương, a quan họ singer caught in a five-way love story with Ninh Dương Lan Ngọc, Kỳ Duyên, Quốc Anh and Steven Nguyễn. It opens in Vietnamese cinemas on 30 October, and puts the actress the music world once told to stay in her lane on screen as a traditional singer.

Tags: singers, Chi Pu, Amber Liu, EXs, Finding You, Hứa Kim Tuyền

Featured News — Chi Pu

See all →

Related People

Featured News — Chi Pu

Sister Sister 3 goes to 3388 Films, the distributor that took Mai past $2 million abroad

Related People

Discussion