Celebrity chef Kylie Kwong is one of Australia’s most popular cooks and restaurateurs.
The 50-year-old Sydneysider has revolutionised Asian cooking in Australia and her first restaurant Billy Kwong was a smash hit, booked out weeks in advance and with queues out the door every Saturday night.
But behind the successful professional life of this star chef is a fascinating, and at times heartbreaking, personal story.
Kylie is gay and says coming out to her family was incredibly difficult, with her father almost disowning her and kicking her out of home.
And while she is happily married to her gorgeous partner Nell, a talented Australian artist, the couple have experienced their fair share of heartbreak.
Keep scrolling to read about Kylie’s incredible life.
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Kylie and her wife Nell on their wedding day.
(Credit: Instagram)Kylie’s shocking coming out story
Kylie came out to her family at age 19, but it nearly tore her close-knit Chinese-Australian family unit apart.
She had begun dating a woman and had told her mother, but not her father. Eventually, he cottoned on and confronted his daughter about her new partner.
“He came into my room he said, ‘so darling are you seeing that woman?’ And I said, ‘Yes Dad I am, I’m gay,’ and I just told him,” Kylie revealed to Anh Do on Anh’s Brush With Fame on Wednesday night.
“And he said, ‘It’s Wednesday, I want you out of the house by Saturday. From this moment I disown you as my daughter,’ he said that, he said that sentence,” Kylie said.
But eventually, her father came around.
“I woke up to my father’s sobbing face on my pillow. And his whole kind of energy and demeanour was of this vulnerable, a lot kind of smaller presence, beautiful presence,” she said.
“And he’s like, ‘Oh my darling, I can’t do it to you, you’re my baby. You’re my little girl and I just can’t do it to you. I just can’t, I can’t. even though I don’t understand your way of life I can’t throw you out.'”
Prior to his death in 2006, Kylie said she and her father went on to have a “wonderful relationship” filled with love and support.
Kylie breaks down talking about her extraordinary life on Anh Do’s Brush With Fame.
(Credit: ABC)Kylie and Nell’s meet-cute story is super adorable
Kylie met Nell, who is a celebrated artist, at an art exhibition in 2004.
“I was determined to meet Kylie because I’d eaten at Billy Kwong and loved the food,” Nell told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“She makes food that is art. When I met her at my friend’s art exhibition, my first impression was her big smile. When we got together later, I loved that we were aligned on all the big issues. I also loved her big heart. To be in Kylie’s orbit is like being in a tsunami of love and generosity.”
And Kylie is just as gushing about Nell, too, revealing that they officially started dating two years after that first meeting.
“I first met Nell in 2004 at an art exhibition, and I thought, ‘What a lovely, open person’,” Kylie said.
“In 2006, she sent me an email asking, ‘Do you want to catch up? I think the universe wants us to be friends’. We had dinner at Billy Kwong and chatted for hours. The following week, I invited her to my house for dinner. A week later, she moved in.”
Kylie and Nell moved in with each other a week after they first started dating.
(Credit: Instagram)But in 2012 they suffered terrible heartbreak
The couple started trying for a baby in 2007 and were overjoyed when in 2011, after years of trying and a lot of planning, Nell fell pregnant.
But just before their baby’s due date – they had decided to name their gorgeous boy Lucky – they were given some devastating news.
“Nell’s waters broke early, and the obstetrician told us that our baby, Lucky, would be stillborn within 24 to 48 hours,” Kylie told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“He stayed alive inside Nell for five days and that was a miracle. During that time, I set up a bar fridge and a gas stove at the hospital because I wanted to feed Nell and our baby the best food. She was hungry and he was still kicking. I said to her afterwards, ‘We fed him well, right up until the end’.
“After leaving hospital, I went food shopping and reached for something Nell had craved during her pregnancy. I realised I didn’t need that anymore and started crying. We were devastated at losing Lucky but determined to get through. Nell said, ‘We must never lose that love that made Lucky.'”
Kylie says the period after the devastating loss was a dark time for the couple.
“There is nothing worse than losing your baby,” Kwong told The Sunday Times.
“It came out of left field,” she said. “You don’t get over it, you just get through it. I am just trying to be as positive as possible and getting on and see the good in things.
“The grief for a stillborn is a very different grief. It happens to a lot of people and when it happens, people don’t know how to react to it or what to say to you. I take my hat off to all those people who have had stillborn babies.
“I encourage anyone who knows of anyone who has lost a child to reach out and speak to them, even if you say the wrong thing.”
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Kylie and Nell have been through hell and back, but are now stronger than ever.
(Credit: Instagram)
Kylie recently closed her iconic Sydney restaurants Billy Kwong.
(Credit: Getty)Kylie and Nell had an intimate, low-key wedding
Kylie proposed to Nell on her 40th birthday in 2015, but says it took a while for the couple to actually get married because they were so busy.
When Kylie turned 50 in March this year, she decided she wanted to be married by then.
They planned to get married in a rooftop garden in Sydney’s Potts Point, but on the day it was pouring with rain. So instead they were married in the backroom of a friend’s flower shop, the iconic Grandiflora on Macleay St.
“It was like a magical floral cave, with candles everywhere, and Nell and I brought our sacred things to create an altar – photos of my father and Nell’s nan, who had both passed away, a photo of Lucky and Lucky’s ashes,” Kylie revealed.
“There were only seven of us – Nell’s and my parents and our friend Subhana, the celebrant.”
WATCH BELOW: See Kylie Kwong’s recipe for stir-friend blue swimmer crab. Story continues after video.
We could not love this adorable couple anymore!
For information and support around stillbirth, contact Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Newborn Death Support (SANDS) on 1300 072 637.
