Kim Lim, the socialite daughter of billionaire Peter Lim, split from her second husband Leslie Leow just two months after a lavish February 2022 wedding, after an earlier three-year first marriage also ended in divorce.
Lim, born in 1991, is one of Singapore's most recognisable high-society figures: an influencer, model and luxury-brand ambassador famed for a jet-setting lifestyle documented for hundreds of thousands of followers. Her father Peter Lim, the stock-market investor turned billionaire best known internationally as the owner of Spanish football club Valencia, has long been a fixture of the country's rich lists.
Her first marriage, to Kho Bin Kai, began in 2016 after the pair met on a trip to Thailand. They had a son, Kyden, but the relationship faded; the couple lived apart from late 2019 and formally divorced in 2020. Lim later described them as opposites in every way, from social media habits to food tastes, and moved back in with her father and stepmother.
The second wedding was pure spectacle. Lim and IT professional Leow, 33, held an intimate Roman Catholic ceremony on February 22, 2022, followed by a Great Gatsby-themed pre-wedding dinner at 1-Atico at Ion Sky, complete with 15,000 black and gold balloons, red roses and celebrity guests including actresses Rebecca Lim and Zoe Tay. Her father presented the couple with a rare S$10,000 banknote and a handwritten note of well wishes.
The fairy tale lasted about eight weeks. In a magazine interview later that year, Lim confirmed the split, saying the marriage was marked by daily quarrels and was nothing like the sweet and warm life she had envisioned. She blamed herself for rushing in, saying she had been blinded by the beauty in front of her and too eager to build a warm home. The divorce itself dragged on, with local media reporting Leow presented a laundry list of items to claim, down to a S$120 pair of Crocs and S$1,200 Sonos speakers, and retrieved the gold bars he had given during the traditional guo da li betrothal ceremony.
Lim later said the failure of her second marriage worsened her battle with depression, even as she threw herself back into travel across Dubai, London and Paris. For Singapore's gossip press, the saga was irresistible: a billionaire heiress, a Gatsby wedding, and a two-month marriage, a real-life tabloid drama from the top of the social ladder.
Through it all, Lim's social-media following only grew, with each twist in her love life driving engagement. Commentators noted the paradox of her fame: the more her private life unravelled in public, the more influential her personal brand became.