HONG KONG (AFP) — Hong Kong pop singer Jacky Cheung hit out at claims he has fired 21 Filipina maids in three years, saying he was an "ordinary employer", a report said Friday.
The popular crooner, who has been banned from hiring helpers from the Philippines for a year, said he could not remember how many maids he and his wife had hired and fired over the years, the South China Morning Post reported.
"I consider myself an ordinary employer. Many of my friends terminate their maids' contracts and I believe it is normal in any employment," he was quoted as saying from the eastern Chinese province of Zhejing, where he was on his concert tour.
"An employer can fire an employee if he or she fails to perform, whilst an employee can also resign if he or she is not happy about the employer.
"Is there anything wrong if we fire a maid when we find out that she is not helpful?," the 46-year-old said.
Cheung, who has been dubbed "the Terminator" by domestic workers, said some of them resigned on their first day after seeing there were too many stairs at the four-storey luxury home he shares with his wife and two young daughters.
The Philippine consulate said Thursday it has placed Cheung and his wife, a former actress, on its banned list of sub-standard employers for one year.
Cheung said his four latest maids all resigned after they found out he had been blacklisted a few weeks ago, leaving him with no hired help. He now relied on his mother, relatives and friends to help, and was recruiting maids from other countries, according to the Post.
Cheung, one of Hong Kong's biggest stars, rose to fame in the mid-1980s. Like most stars here, Cheung has been packaged as an all-round entertainer, starring in a number of hit local films as well as singing Canto-pop, a hybrid of Chinese ballads and Western pop.
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