Sharon Au Uncut - Good Vibes Only

Though she’s had to jump through plenty of hoops, Sharon Au is a picture of positivity. She opens up about why she chooses to look on the bright side, and the real reason she left Singapore.

- Adora Wong

“Something like zis?” says Sharon Au in a charming French accent as she tugs at an outfit while stepping out of the changing room. The former actress cuts a cheery figure at this photo shoot, her last before she returns to Paris after a three-month vacation here. She moved to France in 2018 and is currently an investment director at a private equity firm.

The 46-year-old chatters away as our fashion team fusses around her to put the ensemble together. It’s evident that who she is on her Instagram page (and on TV, if you remember her from back in the day) is who she is in person: She keeps things light-hearted and brims with energy. She’s also full of positivity, which is inspiring to see, given how she not only had a difficult childhood, but was under scrutiny for most of her adult life. In fact, with 129,000 followers on IG, she is still heavily scrutinised and often on the receiving end of negative comments.

So how does she manage to stay so upbeat? Why did she give up a cushy life here and uproot herself? Did she ever regret the move? Why does she upkeep her presence on social media if she’s no longer in the entertainment industry? Sharon reveals all during our hour-long interview.

Let bygones be bygones

Sharon didn’t have the happiest upbringing – her dad walked out on the family, her mum was hardly around, and she was shuttled from foster home to foster home. But to her, it is exactly this trial by fire that made her realise at an early age that there’s a silver lining in every situation.