Profile | How 1990s Hong Kong sex symbol Veronica Yip turned soft-core infamy into mainstream fame

Veronica Yip posed topless for a Hong Kong magazine and acted in erotic films before becoming a pop singer, TV fixture and a tycoon’s wife

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Hong Kong entertainer Veronica Yip poses in a swimsuit in 1994. From soft-core star to mainstream success, Yip’s career was a masterclass in reinvention. Photo: SCMP

Published: 7:15am, 19 Dec 2025

This is the 66th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.

Few narratives in Hong Kong entertainment are as compelling as that of former erotic film icon Veronica Yip Yuk-hing.

Her arc – from beauty pageant contestant to soft-core sensation, mainstream pop singer, respected actress and finally the wife of a tycoon – is more than just a chronicle of survival. It is the story of a trailblazing career strategist who carved out a place for herself in Hong Kong’s conservative society on her own terms.

Born into a wealthy family in 1967, Yip began her public life with conventional glamour. Crowned second runner-up at the inaugural Miss Asia Pageant in 1985, she followed the typical path for beauty queens and signed an acting contract with a local broadcaster, in this case Asia Television (ATV).

Veronica Yip at an interview with the Post in 1991. Photo: SCMP

Success, however, remained elusive. While Yip secured lead roles in several dramas, ATV’s perpetually low ratings meant she struggled to become a household name. Frustrated, the actress made a bold pivot after her ATV contract ended, posing topless for the cover of a tabloid magazine in 1991.

“I had been in showbiz for six years when that magazine cover happened. It was not a short time, and I really had not achieved much at ATV,” Yip told Carol “Do Do” Cheng Yu-ling in a TVB interview the following year.

SCMP Series

Hong Kong’s pop culture icons

[ 66 of 66 ]

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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Veronica Yip posed topless for a Hong Kong magazine and acted in erotic films before becoming a pop singer, TV fixture and a tycoon’s wife

Veronica Yip posed topless for a Hong Kong magazine and acted in erotic films before becoming a pop singer, TV fixture and a tycoon’s wife