Charmaine Hui is regretful her late father, beloved Hong Kong actor Benz Hui, died before she has children, but she is glad he had the chance to experience grandparenthood through his stepson.
The 28-year-old host spoke about Benz, who died at the age of 76 in October 2025, with Cantopop singer-actress Toby Leung in a YouTube podcast released on April 9. His posthumous drama Themis, which also stars Charmaine Sheh, completed its telecast recently.
She said: “I have a lot of regrets. When he died, I was 28, I didn’t think I would lose my dad so fast. He was in a lot of my life plans.
“My parents were not young when they had me. I thought I would still have 10 or 15 years to spend time with them and be filial to them.”
Despite that, she believed it was “fortunate” she was able to spend more time with Benz in the last five years before he died.
He had helped out at her cafe businesses in Singapore, which are all permanently closed now, and they also created social media content together.
Charmaine shared they also made long overseas trips, including visiting her stepbrother — Benz’s Singaporean wife Angeli Lung’s son from her previous marriage — and his family in Europe for a month.
Benz loved his step-granddaughter, Charmaine recounted, and she felt regretful he wasn’t able to see her have her own family.
“He would be an amazing grandfather to my kids, because he was already an amazing grandfather to my brother’s daughter,” she added.
She married Singaporean Shane Sim in Hong Kong in December 2023 and held a wedding ceremony in Singapore in January 2024.
Toby remarked that Benz’s ability to love is great, which she responded: “[His love is] overwhelming, I was jealous!
“He used to put my photo as his handphone wallpaper, but he changed it to his granddaughter! Even though I don’t have kids yet, I’m still really glad he had an experience with a grandkid, which is with my niece.”
Charmaine said her niece looks similar to her when she was a child and she believes Benz, who couldn’t spend much time with her when she was young because of his work, made up for it through the daily care and activities with his step-granddaughter.
“He really doted on my niece. She likes toy cars, and he went online to order 100 cars for her. It wasn’t a lot of money but like… She likes Pokemon, [and he bought] 100 pieces. I mean, does everything have to go in hundreds?” she laughed, adding that their home had become a “playground”.
Funny memories
Charmaine also revealed two funny memories she has of her father.
She said that while Benz was required to put on makeup sometimes in his line of work, he didn’t know how to remove it and didn’t have a skincare routine.
About six or seven years ago, a friend gave him a skincare gift set and Charmaine guided him on how to use it.
“When I woke up the next morning, he told me he had followed the steps, but didn’t understand why it was so sticky,” she recounted.
They then realised he didn’t rinse his face with water after using the facewash.
“This is one of the little funny secrets that we have, which my father thought was very embarrassing,” she laughed.
She also revealed Benz secretly smoked at home occasionally.
She remembered over a decade ago, she went downstairs at night to look for her dog and saw her father coming upstairs and could smell cigarette smoke on him.
When she asked what he was doing, he responded calmly that it was just the smell of his makeup.
Charmaine laughed: “I was like, ‘I am still very smart, doesn’t he think I could tell the difference between the smell of makeup and cigarette smoke?
Knowing he was caught in the act, both of them burst out laughing.
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