Leehom dating female student

BEIJING - It's a girl. Chinese American pop star Wang Leehom, 37, has announced he is dating a 27-year-old female student, after years of speculation about his sexual orientation.

Posting a photo in which she rests her head on his shoulder (right), he said on Weibo yesterday: "I'm lucky to have found a girl I can hold hands and spend the future with."

He gave her name in Chinese as Li Jinglei and described her as a research student at Columbia University. He told fans: "Papa and Mama Wang like her and I hope you will too."

Early this year, he denied intense online chatter about his "Brokeback romance" with pianist Li Yundi.

Wang, who returned to his native New York recently for Thanksgiving, posted a couple of musings on marriage before his announcement, said Taiwan Apple Daily.

In one note, accompanied by a photo of his parents at the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, he wrote that the Taiwanese refer to a wife as kanchiu, which also means "holding hands".

He said: "My mother tells me that the older she is, the more she understands the meaning of kanchiu."

In another note, he wrote that his life as a musician who travels frequently had been lonely. "I wrote a lot of songs about needing someone to be with me and being a 'gypsy of music', which reflected my desire for love and family life." 

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