Xu's The One

Ch 8 star XU BIN tells us all about his 27-year-old fiancée — yes, the Ch 8 duke is (gasp!) getting married — who he’s been dating in secret since 2013 (double gasp!).

- Jocelyn Lee

If you had asked us a week ago who would be the first of the Ch 8 Dukes to get married, we would probably have said Jeffrey Xu, who is all #couple goals with Felicia Chin, or Shane Pow, who made last week’s cover with his boo Kimberly Wang, or even Desmond Tan, who has been in a relationship for years. We would never have guessed it would be Xu Bin, who shocked us all when he announced last week on his Instagram that he’s getting married. Wait, he was in a relationship?

But for the 28-year-old, his upcoming nuptials have been five months in the making. “It’s the biggest event of my life. Of course I want to be fully prepared. I want to make sure everything is ready and done nicely before I make the announcement to the public,” Xu Bin says, his voice tinged with anxiety and excitement.

The boyish star is speaking to us at Orchard Hotel, where he’s holding a press conference to answer queries from the media regarding his very surprising nuptials. It’s also the venue for his Singapore wedding banquet on Nov 3, where he says he’ll be inviting 250 guests.

Besides Singapore, Xu Bin will also hold a banquet in his hometown Fujian on Jan 13, and another banquet in his wife-to-be’s hometown Wuhan on Jan 28.

Xu Bin met his fiancée Evelyn Wang Yi Fei in 2013. But he kept the relationship a secret from Dasmond for the first three years as Dasmond has a strict nodating policy that he imposes on the artistes in his talent agency NoonTalk Media.

“But I’ve always been the more rebellious one in the company,” laughs Xu Bin. “When I met Yi Fei, I broke the no-dating rule because love is something you can’t explain (smiles).”