Biography

On 15 April 2014, Chiung Yao accused Chinese screenwriter and producer Yu Zheng of blatant plagiarism, seeking immediate suspension of the broadcast of his TV series Palace 3: The Lost Daughter, which she alleged to have plagiarized from her 1992 novel Plum Blossom Scar . Yu denied the claim. On April 28, Chiung Yao filed a plagiarism lawsuit against Yu. On December 12, 109 Chinese screenwriters published a joint statement supporting Chiung Yao. A day later, an additional 30 Chinese screenwriters made their support of Chiung Yao known. On 25 December, the court ruled in Chiung Yao's favor, ordering four companies to stop distributing and broadcasting The Palace: The Lost Daughter, also demanding Yu Zheng to publicly apologize and pay Chiung Yao RMB 5 million (around $800,000) in compensation. China Radio International called it a "landmark ruling".

Her father, Chen Zhiping, was a professor of Chinese literature at National Taiwan Normal University.

In 1979, Chiung Yao married her publisher Ping Hsin-tao, who had had three children with his first wife Lin Wan-zhen. In 2018, Lin published a memoir in which she accused Chiung Yao of breaking up her marriage.

Chiung Yao's novels were first serialized in the Crown Magazine owned by Ping Hsin-tao and then published as monographs by Crown Publishing, also owned by Ping, who later became her second husband. The couple adapted many of her novels into television series and films, often serving as producers or screenwriters themselves.

In 1998, " My Fair Princess " became very famous in East Asia. It not only won the ratings championship in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, but was also very popular in Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia .