Ella Chen


Ella Chen Chia-hwa is a Taiwanese singer, actress, and television host. She is a member of the Taiwanese girl group S.H.E.

Career

On 8 August 2000, HIM International Music held a 'Universal 2000 Talent and Beauty Girl Contest' in search of new artists to sign under their label. When she traveled with her sister to Taipei for a holiday, Ella discovered that her older sister had registered her for a singing competition. Intimidated by the long line of contestants and worried of facing ridicule for her tomboy personality, Ella almost gave up before the first round. Her older sister, however, convinced her to stay. Ella's deep voice caught the label's attention, and then she reached the final round. Her alto voice was noted for its strong and beautiful nature.
Following the conclusion of the contest, Ella returned to her duties at a local hospital, but received a call from HIM International requesting an additional audition. After test recordings were done, Ella signed on as part of HIM's newest girl group, S.H.E. Her name 'Ella', which means courage, is derived from a personality test set by HIM Management Co. When Ella first tested out her signature, HIM employees were concerned that the signature would be easily forged due to its simplicity; thus, during S.H.E's early days, Ella signed autographs using the last character of her name,. However, as S.H.E's autograph sessions drew larger audiences, Ella reverted to her simpler, English signature.
During her career with S.H.E, Ella has been the most accident-prone member. On 29 July 2003, she was sent to the hospital after jumping from the third story of a building and injuring her spine while filming a variety program as the two other members refused to jump. She returned three weeks later to promote Super Star. In 2005, during the filming of Reaching for the Stars, Ella burned her ears and hair on a candle, prompting crew members to send her to the National Taiwan University Hospital. To recover, Ella stayed away from filming for two days, during which she cut off approximately two centimeters of burnt hair on both sides of her head.
In 2007, Chen was voted by online fans as Taiwan's most down-to-earth artist. Out of the three members of S.H.E, Ella is the most outspoken. Since the release of S.H.E's first album in 2001, Ella has usually been the one to answer reporter's questions. As the tomboy of S.H.E, Ella is frequently the subject of jokes targeting her gender and sexual orientation, but she usually takes the jabs in stride. Netizens even labelled her one of China's Four Main Tomboys of the past century. Her unusually deep voice earned her a starring role as the voice of Arthur in the Mandarin version of Arthur and the Minimoys.
In 2003, Ella starred in a drama series The Rose with Joe Cheng and Jerry Huang and gave her the title of one of the best and most popular drama actress after the mediocre success of Magical Love with Blue Lan. The drama was voted the Most Popular Drama in Golden Bell Awards.
In 2005, Ella did a drama series with her S.H.E group mates Reaching for the Stars and once again, she proved that she can act very well as she was the only member nominated as Best Lead Actress in 41st Golden Bell Awards considering the fact that the three of them were the leads of the said drama.
In 2006, Ella accepted a drama series that sealed the deal that she was indeed one of the idol drama queens in Taiwan. Hanazakarino Kimitachihe gained extraordinary fame and made her team-up with Wu Chun a loveteam to beat. The popularity reached other Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and even in the non-Chinese speaking countries like Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, USA and some European countries.
2010 marked Ella's return to the drama series arena when with Jerry Yan, she led the cast of Down With Love. Again, she showed an undeniable strength to draw a large number of audience because of its success despite of being leaked before the 3rd episode was aired.
In 2012, Ella started to venture into the big screen in her first full-length film New Perfect Two alongside Vic Zhou and was immediately followed by another equally successful movie Bad Girls with Mike He. Bad Girls theme song was interpreted by Ella herself and became the carrier single of her first commercial mini album entitled To Be Ella/I am Chen Jia Hua which topped the charts all over Asia and gained various praises from the critics and nominations from different award giving bodies on the same year.
As a singer and an actress, Ella has also appeared in various music videos such as 愛的重唱曲-覆水難收篇, 再一次拥有 by Kaira Gong and 愛到瘋癲 by Power Station.
In 2009, Ella composed a song for her seniors Power Station, entitled "Love Crazy/愛到瘋癲". The song was given to them as repayment for Power Station have given S.H.E the song "Freezer". Ella had also composed a station song entitled "Pop Radio 91.7 jingle" for Taiwan Pop Radio station "Pop Radio 91.7," 再这里 for Huang Yi Da, 鸟 for Yao Yao.
In 2013, Ella filmed a Chinese New Year Drama in Shanghai entitled Ji Pin Da Zuo Zhan which required her to film one month straight as she went back and forth from Taiwan to Shanghai, from Shanghai to Taiwan to fulfill her group activities in her home country.
Chen also hosted a dating show Take Me Out with Harlem Yu which began airing on 13 April 2013. She was nominated for Best Entertainment TV Show Host along with Yu at the 49th Golden Bell Awards.
Chen was a judge in Season 2 of the Chinese reality singing television show, Masked Singer.
Chen was a vocal mentor on Produce 101 China, which aired in 2018. In 2020, Chen joined Season 2 of the Chinese survival show, Youth With You, otherwise also known as Idol Producer Season 3, as a vocal coach along with Cai XuKun, BLACKPINK's Lisa and Jony J.

Personal life

In October 2016, Chen announced that she was 6 weeks pregnant with her first child with her husband, Alvin Lai, who is a Malaysian. Their child, a boy, was born on 12 April 2017.
She first revealed her son nine months after his birth on social media. He later appeared at S.H.E 17th anniversary concert as a surprise guest.

Discography

Studio albums

Television series

Film

Variety show

Music videos