Kimberley Chen Fang-yu is an Australian singer, actress and model based in Taiwan. She attended Tintern Grammar in Melbourne, Australia. She was the youngest and only child model on the Channel 9's The Price Is Right and later appeared as Young Nala in Disney's Lion King at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne as well as the Shanghai Grand Theater in Shanghai. She is now a professional singer in Taiwan, singing both English and Mandarin songs. Her debut album has been a commercial success and her debut song "愛你" has reached 100,000,028 views on YouTube on 27 August 2019 2.28pm Taiwan Time.
Biography
Chen's parents immigrated to Australia from Malaysia. Chen was first coached in singing by her father and then by Vladimir Vais, a world-famous conductor and musical director for the Russian Bolshoi Ballet for over 10 years. At a young age, Chen did photographic work and appeared in a McDonald's commercial that aired throughout Asia. Chen began singing for charities at the age of four with the help of her father. She performed regularly at charity concerts and clubs and donated to Australian Community Aid Abroad. When the East Timor Crisis came, she felt strongly for the Timorese and her donation went to Caritas Australia for direct aid to East Timor. In the 2003 Royal Children Hospital Good Friday Appeal on the Seven Network, at the age of 8, she sang and danced "Let's Get Loud" with back-up dancers. Discovered by Grundy Television executive director Michael Whyte, Chen was offered the ongoing role as the featured child model on The Price Is Right for its 2003 revival. She performed in over 400 episodes on the Nine Network for 2 ½ years. In July 2005, Chen started playing the role of Young Nala in Disney's The Lion King at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne. In June 2006, Chen was offered the same role to perform in Shanghai's Grand Theatre for the season, through October 2006. While she was in Shanghai, Chen attracted quite a lot of interest from the local media. After The Lion King, Chen stayed on to perform on a Shanghai television show. In March 2007, Chen was selected to sing the national anthem at the Australian Football LeagueNAB Cup Grand Final in front of an audience of 40,000, which aired nationally on Seven. From April to November 2008, Chen was on the roster of artists at JYP Entertainment in New York. From November 2008 to June 2009, she was training independently in singing, dancing and acting in New York under the guidance of Yolanda Wyns, and recording with Grammy-award winners Gordon Chambers and Barry Eastmond. In March 2010, she was invited to compete in the Taiwanese televised singing competition One Million Star. As she got good results on the programme, she was asked to be the guest singer for Kelly Clarkson's All I Ever Wanted World Tour in Taipei. She was signed with Sony BMG Taiwan, but in 2014, Blackie Chen and his wife, Christine Fan signed her for one year as a talent under their new talent agency, B.ANGEL. Her current label has not been revealed yet. Chen is a vegetarian and supports animals rights, and she hopes to create a foundation to create awareness of the care of animals.
Music career
2012: Debut with Kimberley
After nearly 3 years of preparation Chen's debut album was released on 27 April 2012, with 6 Chinese songs and 5 English songs. Two of her songs have been played on the Taiwanese series Fondant Garden starring Park Jung Min. Her debut single "愛你 " has been a success on YouTube, with over 102,000,000 views and generally positive comments. Chen's second single "Never Change" was the first for which she wrote the music and lyrics. Chen has released two music videos for her two singles and both have been a success on YouTube with 愛你, also starring JPM and "廖允傑" having over 15,000,000 views. In Taiwan she has come first in KKBOX charts with her first single and debut album ezPeer, 台灣大哥大, 中華電信 and 遠傳電信 topping ringtone download charts.
2013: ''Kimbonomics''
Sony Music announced on 16 December 2013, that Chen will be releasing her second studio album. The new album contains 10 tracks and will be released on 25 December 2013 The album placed 4th on the weekly music charts of KKBOX in Taiwan on 25 January 2014.
