Outside the funeral home in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island, nearly a thousand fans, many dressed in black, lined up in the summer heat to enter a funeral hall that was open to the public after a private service.
“The love you leave behind has become an ocean of stars,” read a large fan-held banner with a photo of Lee in a long white dress walking up a beaded staircase.
Angie Zhang, 41, a fan from Shanghai, said she bonded with her future husband in college through Lee’s songs.
“We have always chosen her songs to dance to. She is our connection. We want to accompany her on her last journey. When we learned that she passed away, our minds went blank,” she said, while holding a flower crown.
Inside the hall, people entered and bowed before a coffin surrounded by purple and pink flowers, and a portrait of the singer with the words: “In loving memory of CoCo Lee”.
Lee, who had been battling depression for several years, died at Queen Mary Hospital on July 5 in Hong Kong, after a suicide attempt left her in a coma three days earlier, her two sisters wrote. in a Facebook post at the time.
“Although Coco sought professional help and did her best to battle depression, sadly, this demon within her got the better of her,” the sisters, Carol and Nancy, wrote in the statement.
‘Sing Free in Heaven’
Some of Lee’s most notable performances include the vocals of the warrior Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney’s “Mulan” and her rendition of the Oscar-nominated song “A Love Before Time” from the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”.
“She was the first Asian singer to perform on the Oscars stage, it makes us all proud of her,” Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan said in a video post.
“I hope you can dance and sing freely in heaven.”
Lee was born in Hong Kong in 1975 and was the youngest of three children born to a Hong Kong mother and a Malaysian father.
Lee was an ethnic Chinese breakthrough star who burst onto the international music scene and became extremely popular in China and Taiwan, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
While she moved to San Francisco as a child, she was offered a recording contract in Hong Kong with Capital Artists after high school, prompting her to return to her hometown.
In 1996, Lee signed with Sony Music Entertainment and her debut album, “Coco Lee”, became the best-selling album of that year in Asia.
Her popularity has steadily grown in Asia and across the Pacific, setting her on the path to new collaborations and English-language songs. Over a career spanning nearly 30 years, she has recorded 18 studio albums and appeared in three films, including Lee Xin’s “Master of Everything.”
In 2011, Lee married Bruce Rockowitz, a Canadian businessman who is the former CEO of Hong Kong supply chain company Li & Fung. He survives her, as do his sisters and two daughters-in-law.
