Dee Hsu thanks public for their tributes to late sister, actress Barbie Hsu

Well-known Taiwanese TV host Dee Hsu made a post on Instagram on Feb 15, two weeks after her older sister, popular Taiwanese actress-host Barbie Hsu, also known as Big S, died on Feb 2

at the age of 48 from pneumonia

.

The 46-year-old wrote: “Thank you everyone for remembering my sister Barbie in different ways. The Hsu family expresses respect for all the tributes.”

This was her first time speaking out via her social media since the tragedy.

The death of Barbie Hsu,

star of hit Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden (2001)

and its sequel the following year, came as a shock to fans as she had seemed well in the days leading up to her death, even attending a wedding celebration in January.

Her pneumonia developed from a bout of influenza while she was on holiday with her family in Japan.

An anonymous netizen and fan, known only as Jiang Er-er on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, posted a clip of a one-minute memorial tribute to Barbie Hsu on a billboard in New York’s Times Square on Feb 11. The netizen said it cost around 50,000 to 70,000 yuan (S$9,200 to S$12,900) to put up a one-minute clip on the billboard but added that cost did not matter.

“I just wanted to give her my most sincere love and remembrance within the limits of what I can do,” the netizen said.

There have also been billboards with tribute clips of Barbie Hsu in Chinese cities such as Nanjing and Shanghai.

K-pop star Rain, who held his solo concert in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung on Feb 15, asked for 10 seconds of silence to remember Barbie Hsu, who married South Korean musician Koo Jun-yup in 2022.

In social media clips posted by concertgoers, Rain, 42, called Hsu his “sister-in-law” as Koo is like a big brother to him.

He said: “I’ve never met her before, but as a junior (in the industry) who is here in Taiwan, I think it is only basic decency to pray for them and have a moment of silence.”

“(Koo) is a senior in the industry whom I respect very much. Even though I can’t see him in person, I still want to pray for him from somewhere far away,” he added. “Among all the people I know, he’s truly the best senior one can have, he’s a kind and upright person.”

Singer-actor Show Lo, 45, who was a co-host with the Hsu sisters on the variety programme 100% Entertainment (1997 to 2004) and also played Barbie Hsu’s love interest in the romance drama Corner With Love (2007), got emotional as well at his Feb 14 concert in Tokyo.

While performing Ai Zhuan Jiao, Corner With Love’s theme song, he looked up at the sky and held back tears.