Shiyuan "Barbie" Hsu (Chinese: 徐熙媛; pinyin: Xú Xīyuán; 6 October 1976 – 2 February 2025), also known by her stage name Big S (大S; Dà S),[1] was a Taiwanese actress, singer, and television host.

[10][11] When she was young, her mother, a benshengren originally working as a waitress at the restaurant next to the Hsus' shop before marriage, separated from Hsu's father due to pressure from his family on her to bear a son, along with his infidelity, domestic abuse, alcoholism and gambling.

[12][13] Their mother acted as a spokesperson and partial manager throughout their career, while their father, who maintained a good relationship with his daughters after he had given up drinking, died from liver cancer in 2012 at the age of 59.

[17] However, before their debut as a pop duo, contractual disputes arose, as the sisters’ playful personalities clashed with Famous Records founder Chen Kuo-Chin's vision of a more "pure and innocent" image for them.

They signed a one-year record deal with a relatively small label Skyhigh Entertainment in exchange for the creative carte blanche over the album, where Barbie and Dee wrote all the compositions and lyrics.

Initially produced by Sandee Chan before she was replaced by Mavis Fan, the album was a gothic fantasia that was overlooked upon release, with one song, "Love You to Death" (愛你愛到死), censored in mainland China, but was later reassessed for its avant-garde experimentation and revived on social media.

[41] After marrying Chinese entrepreneur Wang Xiaofei in 2011, she retreated from acting, with several attempts to return in the following years thwarted by pregnancy, health issues, and the declining opportunities for middle-aged actresses.

From 2011 to 2012, she served as a stand-in host for Dee during the latter's maternity leave on the variety-comedy talk show Kangsi Coming, where Barbie also frequently appeared as a guest over the years.

[58][51][59] On November 16, 2010, after a whirlwind romance in which they had met four times, Hsu married Chinese entrepreneur Wang Xiaofei, the son of Zhang Lan, founder of the restaurant group South Beauty, in Beijing.

They briefly reconciled until June, when during China's zero-Covid period reports emerged that two passengers had tested positive for COVID-19 in Xiamen after departing from Taiwan—one of whom had been allowed to board by Taiwan's Uni Air despite a positive test result[70]—prompting Wang to harshly criticize on Weibo Taiwan's pandemic policies, shortage of vaccinations affecting his family in Taipei, as well as the island's growing pro-independence and anti-China sentiment, referring to some Taiwanese as "hanjian.

[53][54][55][75] In November 2022, Hsu sought enforcement of spousal maintenance at the Taipei District Court against Wang, claiming he had failed to honor their divorce agreement since March of that year.

[76][77] In the following years, Hsu and Wang were embroiled in a high-profile legal battle, marked by bitter online exchanges and sparking wide-ranging public discussions on sexism, misinformation, and cross-strait relations.

[89] In March 2024, when asked whether their highly publicized divorce—sometimes seen as a symbolic end of the honeymoon period in cross-strait relations over the past decade—would worsen relations, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office commented, “People on both sides of the strait are one family, and cross-strait marriages bring us even closer.” However, regarding the “rare cases of failed marriages,” the parties involved should “part on good terms and go their separate ways in peace.”[90] At the time of Hsu's death on 2 February 2025, the second hearing of the case over dividing the matrimonial assets was to be heard on 27 February 2025.

[93][94] Hsu was a lifelong fan of Takuya Kimura since junior high school, inspiring her to learn Japanese and briefly pursue a career in Japan.

Hsu was initially announced to have a tree burial in accordance with her wishes,[112] but this was later ruled out as her widower, Koo, sought to secure a memorial site for family and friends to pay their visits.

On 4 February, Wang left emotional messages on Douyin clips of the marriage reality show Happiness Trio featuring him and Hsu, including "My wife, I miss you" and "I'm the one who should be dead.

[117] Hsu spoke about death throughout her career, shaped by her early struggles with depression and a host of health issues she had after marriage, embodying a philosophical and completely at-ease outlook.

"[118] On February 8, 2025, the first seventh-day memorial (頭七) after Hsu’s passing, family and friends gathered at her home under the theme of her "third wedding anniversary," honoring her farewell wishes by sharing cake and champagne.

[121][122][123] Barbie and Dee are especially popular among women, urban dwellers and the LGBTQ community, of which they were also among the earliest public supporters in the Chinese-speaking world, including advocating for same-sex marriage on their show in the early 2000s.

[124] On the other hand, their shows sometimes sparked controversy with their no-holds-barred topics and alleged insensitivity toward Taiwan's local traditions and culture, including glove puppetry and Southern Min dialect, which are closely associated with the pan-Green Coalition—contrasting with their pan-Blue family background.

Her circle of celebrity friends and family often described her as being "ging,” a Southern Min dialect word meaning “tense and unable to relax，” reflecting her strict self-discipline and perfectionism on and off screen.

[128][129][130] As she explained one of her controversial jokes from 100% Entertainment in an interview with Kevin Tsai: “Little S told me that every time she saw me lying at home with depression, she was terrified that I might grab a knife and kill her.

[132] Sanlian Lifeweek called her an “entertainment queen" of her generation while reflecting on the burdens of her relentless determination throughout her tumultuous childhood, career and marriage: "Though she never wished to reveal her struggles, never showed weakness, and never lost control in public, the experiences she endured over the years laid bare the challenges she faced as a woman [...] Beyond her iconic role as Shan Cai, her greatest performance was playing herself.

Jia noted that Hsu, with her sister, pushed the boundaries of traditional Chinese femininity, demonstrating that women could be "unruly, funny, and sharp-tongued" while freely expressing their emotions.

[134] Yang critiqued the dominant memorial narratives, arguing that they placed greater emphasis on Hsu’s relationships and family over her professional achievements, romanticizing both her entanglements with Wang through tragic romance tropes and the circumstances of her death: "Based on Hsu’s approach to life, her views on death, and her active and abundant romantic life, some articles have portrayed her passing as that of a kung fu heroine—departing with no regrets, young, beautiful, and carefree, as if she had merely taken a fleeting journey through this world.

"[136] After Hsu's death, Luo launched an online campaign calling for the ban of Zhang Lan and Wang Xiaofei’s Douyin accounts, which some credited as a contributing factor in the platform’s decision to take action.

The charm of the Hsu sisters lies in how every chapter of their lives resonates with so many people—because when a story is too triumphant, it leaves no room for you to see yourself in it.”[139] In February 2000, Barbie and Dee sparked controversy on their show 100% Entertainment when they talked about Legend of the Sacred Stone (2000), Taiwan's first glove puppetry film.

Barbie said: “Setting aside the serious topic of whether or not to support domestic films, I personally find glove puppetry unbearably awful… Sure, it may be considered part of China’s cultural heritage, but at the end of the day, it’s just puppets!

The Hsu sisters issued a joint statement expressing regret over Huang's unstable emotional state and refuting the drug use allegation, stating that one of Huang's allegded events, “Barbie was not even present at the scene.” They also noted that the court had ruled in 2004 against a Next Magazine's report on Dee's alleged drug use, “legally clearing Dee’s name.” The case was assigned for investigation by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.

[155] In June 2023, shortly after Huang's allegations, paparazzo Ge Siqi claimed on a television program that he had heard from sources about a drug dealer supplying narcotics to the Hsu sisters.