"Big S passed away." CNN reports that was the top trending topic on Monday on China's Weibo social media platform, as news of the death of one of Taiwan's most famous actors circulated. In a statement cited by the nation's Central News Agency, Dee Hsu said her older sister, 48-year-old Barbie Hsu, who'd suffered from poor health in recent years, caught the flu during a family vacation in Japan, which progressed to pneumonia and killed her. Deadline notes she had a history of epilepsy and heart issues, and that she had ended up in the hospital in the past for seizures.
The Hsu sisters catapulted to national fame as teens as the pop duo SOS, with Barbie taking on the role of "Big S" and Dee becoming "Small S," per the AP. They then transitioned to become talk-show hosts and actors, with the elder Hsu nabbing a role in the 2001 Taiwanese TV drama Meteor Garden. She played the middle-class Shan Cai, a teenager attending a snobby private school who falls in love with a rich classmate.
Hsu, who retired from entertaining in 2022, had made headlines of late due to her high-profile split from husband Wang Xiaofei, a Chinese businessman. She then married "DJ Koo" (real name: Koo Jun-yup), a South Korean singer. "I am grateful that in this lifetime I was able to be her sister, taking care of each other and being companions," Dee Hsu said in a Monday statement, per the AP. "I will forever be thankful for her and miss her!" Hsu, who was also a passionate animal-rights activist, is survived by Koo and two children she shared with her ex-husband. (More celebrity death stories.)
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