Actor Terence Cao chided for hugging two women during livestreams

Local actor Terence Cao raised some eyebrows recently when during a livestream for e-commerce platform Sibeh Shiok, he hugged actress Dawn Yeoh from the back.

This prompted some netizens to speculate that the two were romantically involved – only to have Yeoh clarify that they weren’t dating, and that the hug was simply a marketing strategy.

Yeoh, 37, said she saw Cao, 55, as an “older brother”. The pair also said they were spoofing actress Rebecca Lim's pregnancy announcement to congratulate her.

Cao prompted netizens to make similar comments once again last Saturday (Sept 30) when he hugged another woman – Joyce, who owns a Malaysian beauty product company – on another livestream.

The hug was similar – from the back, but this time with his head lovingly against hers. 

Unlike the first instance with Yeoh, where netizens were mostly congratulatory with their comments, the words were a little more pointed this time around. 

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"Why are you always taking advantage of women?" one comment read.

"Less than one day, hugging a different lady, so flirtatious," another wrote.

"This again! Don't you have any other tactics?" another person questioned.

Cao later defended his actions in a solo livestream in Melaka on Sunday. “Joyce asked me how we were going to do our livestream, and I told her we were going to 'rev it up', as we wanted to bring joy and entertainment to our audience.

"We are not only livestream salespeople, but also actors, so we will act out certain scenes on screen and talk about trivial matters. That's all."

Cao, who has been in showbiz since 1989, also said that “being misunderstood wasn't a bad thing”.

"It's good that people are paying attention to me, as it's not right of me to do livestreams with 'nothing [exciting] to give' to our audience.

"We were just hugging and didn't strip! That would have been wrong. Hugging is just to create hype."

Cao also speculated that his viewers might have been outraged because they did not know who Joyce was.

"When they see me hugging Dawn, they say, 'I hope both of you have kids soon', because they like Dawn. When they see me hugging a woman they don't know, they get mad."