In 2012, veteran Mediacorp actor Terence Cao made headlines when a Shanghai woman claimed he fathered her 20-month-old daughter after a brief encounter in 2010. A DNA test confirmed he was the father, and Cao publicly acknowledged his daughter Shi En while remaining only friends with the mother.
The woman, identified as Shi Si Mei from Shanghai, said she met Cao at a party in 2010 and had a one-night stand with him. She surprised the actor by revealing the pregnancy only after the child, Shi En, was born. Cao, one of Channel 8's most popular leading men since the 1990s, initially faced questions over paternity before the DNA test settled the matter. He publicly acknowledged his daughter but did not marry Shi, describing himself later as an accidental dad who learnt fatherhood along the way.
In interviews years later, Cao said he was grateful for his daughter despite the shock, noting that abortion was against his religion and that he would keep the baby as long as she was his. Shi En lives in Shanghai with her mother, and Cao has said he sees her about once every six months, maintaining what he called a cordial relationship with her mother.
The love-child saga was not Cao's only brush with controversy. In early 2021, he was identified as the homeowner at the centre of a COVID-19 safe-distancing breach: 13 people, including Mediacorp artistes Shane Pow, Jeffrey Xu and Sonia Chew, gathered at his Daisy Road condo for a birthday celebration during Phase Two restrictions. Cao was one of two men charged in court over the gathering.
In 2023, Cao came under investigation after appearing in three video commercials for an illegal gambling website, a potential breach of Singapore's Gambling Control Act. Cao claimed he was unaware of the website's nature and said the videos were meant to discourage gambling, but the police confirmed they were notified of the matter.
After leaving acting, Cao reinvented himself as a livestream seller running Sibay Shiok, riding the live-commerce boom. His journey from heartthrob to headline-maker to livestreamer has made him one of Singapore entertainment's most enduring figures of public fascination.
In a 2025 podcast appearance on Allan Wu's Call Us Daddy, Cao reflected on the saga with surprising candour, saying he was never prepared to be a dad and describing himself as an accidental father grateful for the journey. He revealed that his daughter Shi En, now 15, lives in Shanghai and is unlikely to move to Singapore for practical reasons, and that he maintains a cordial relationship with her mother. The interview, billed as the rise and fall of Terence Cao, drew wide attention as one of his most reflective public moments.