‘I was speechless, I cried’ said Yeoh’s niece Vicki, while the 60-year-old actress’ mother said she was proud of her ‘very hardworking’ daughter.
“Malaysia boleh!” cried Michelle Yeoh’s mother in a video chat with her daughter minutes after her historic Oscars win was announced – citing a popular slogan that loosely translates into “Malaysia can do it!” “I’m very happy … I’m proud of my daughter. She is very hardworking,” Janet Yeoh told reporters after her daughter became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress. “I’ll call her to come back [to Malaysia] and celebrate very soon. Next month is my birthday.” She and other relatives and friends of Yeoh’s were gathered at a live screening of the awards ceremony at a Kuala Lumpur cinema, where there were loud cheers, embraces and tears of joy the second the announcement was made. “It was such a jaw-dropping moment,” Yeoh’s niece Vicki said. “I was speechless, I cried. Everything was, it happened so quickly. We are so happy that she won, that our auntie won … “We kept telling her: ‘You will win … You’re going to stand on stage with the golden man,” she said, referring to the Oscar statuette.
