Actress Yvonne Lim opens up about loneliness and depression after move to Taiwan

SINGAPORE – Actress Yvonne Lim, 49, revealed that she battled depression and loneliness after moving to Taiwan in 2015 for marriage and motherhood.

Speaking in an interview on the Mediacorp travelogue series Those Days Those Places, Lim says when she moved to Taiwan to be with Alex Tien, a 46-year-old businessman and a former member of the Taiwanese boy band B.A.D, she believed it would be a temporary move of two years.

“Back then, when I gave up everything and moved back to Taipei with him, I felt really down for a while. I didn’t think too much about it, I just thought I’d be a good mum and a good wife. I gave up everything and stayed for two years. I thought I could handle two years,” she says on the show, which was uploaded to YouTube on March 10.

She had given up a strong social network in Singapore to be with her husband and struggled with isolation after the move.

“I didn’t expect to feel so unhappy when I was there. I felt like I had no friends and Alex is a very quiet person, he never took me out, and I took care of our kid at home every day. I think I developed a bit of depression at that time,” she says.

She said she took what she thought was a worthwhile gamble on love at the time, choosing her relationship with Tien over her thriving career and circle of friends in Singapore. While uprooting took courage, she faced more emotional hurdles after landing in Taiwan.

“I had a lot of fear back then. You’re starting from zero in a place where you know no one,” she says.

Speaking to Taiwanese actress and singer Sunnie Huang, who interviewed her on the show, Lim says her mental health improved after making friends with Huang and other Taiwanese. They provided her with a social outlet, giving her the stability to stay for 10 years instead of the expected two.

“You guys took care of me because you let me feel that warmth... You made me feel that I wasn’t alone,” she says.

Lim made the difficult decision for the family to relocate to Singapore in 2025 for the sake of her extended family and career. She and Tien have two children – AJ, 11, and Alexa, nine – who are now enrolled in schools in Singapore.

She says: “At that time (in 2015), I saw how tired Alex was. I felt I should fulfil my responsibility as a wife and move over. But now, after 10 years, we have reached this point. Everything was done for the sake of the children and now it is time for the next step.”

In a 2025 interview with entertainment magazine 8days, Lim says that she is considering taking time off work to help AJ prepare for his PSLE examinations in 2026.

Lim received the All Time Favourite Artiste award, alongside host Pornsak, at the Star Awards in 2025. She is set to appear in the Channel 8 crime drama No Other Way, airing in July.