December 03, 2023, 10:49 AM
It was just a regular day for ex-drug addict-turned-social media content creator Simon Khung and his girlfriend Chloe Eong, with the pair getting foot massages at People’s Park Complex.
36-year-old Khung, better known online by the moniker Simonboy, finished up first and indulged in his habit of browsing the window displays of the mall’s second-hand luxury watch shops — “manifesting” the purchases, he quipped.
“Then, the person came out of the shop this time,” he recalled.
The store’s attendant, who recognised Khung as a repeat window-shopper, noted that the social media content creator had regularly come by, though never made a purchase.
“I started to ask her about the prices… and then I thought, ‘there’s no right time… right now is a good time’. Then I just waited for (Eong) to finish the massage, and I told her ‘let’s go to see the watches',” he said.
A couple of minutes later, Eong walked out the shop, the new owner of a Rolex watch — courtesy of Khung.
The moment had come as a complete surprise to Eong, who is 31 years old;“I thought we just see-see only… cause we see very long already,” she laughed.
In one sense, the gift had been months in the making. Having bought himself a Rolex earlier in the year, Khung had promised that his next big purchase would be a watch for Eong.
In another sense, it was the culmination of a years-long journey that had seen “Simongirl” (as she has come to be known) a constant in Simonboy’s meteoric rise from former inmate to TikTok star.
“When I have only S$50 you were with me,” wrote Khung in a post on his Instagram commemorating the milestone.
“I made a promise to you before..
When I had nothing and you were there supporting me..
When I have something,
you will own half of it.”
The 2 sides to Simonboy
An in-depth scroll of Khung’s TikTok feed uncovers two sides of the creator: skits capitalising on his natural flair for the comedic and his “ah beng” persona, alongside heartfelt videos of Khung speaking frankly about his tumultuous earlier life.
While he is arguably better known these days for the former, both types of content have in common a healthy dose of self-awareness; Khung is fully cognisant of who he is, and how far he’s come.
The day we meet, both sides of Simonboy were on display.
Dressed in a plain black t-shirt and smart checkered pants, Khung humorously lamented that a fold in his trousers was causing him to seem rather excited about our interview.
Yet, as we discussed his life’s journey, Khung somewhat quietened down, speaking with a surprising eloquence and introspection.
“I think that if 10 years ago, you gave me all this fame, I will be over my head,” reflected Khung.
“But because I’ve fallen to even the suicide phase in my life — I came from the dirt, the pile of sh*t. I’m literally from there. So if you were to ask me now, there’s nothing for me to be proud or arrogant about.”
Drugs, assault, and jail
Khung in his younger, more rebellious days. Image courtesy of Simon Khung.
As he tells it, Khung was just 16 years old the first time he took drugs — a few joints of marijuana with a friend at a house in Novena.
“We went to smoke up then we took a bus back to Far East Plaza — I was laughing the whole way,” he remembered.
“I didn’t feel bad at all. And that opened the door for me to try all sorts of drugs because [I thought] ‘eh it’s nothing what’.”
By his twenties, Khung was regularly abusing prescription pills and methamphetamine.
His first stint in jail came in 2015 after he assaulted an individual in a drug-fuelled rage.
That seven-month sentence was followed by another jail term two years later in 2017.
This time, Khung — who was under investigation for another assault — was caught by police after frightened neighbours reported that he’d been loitering at his void deck wielding a knife.
“I was so frustrated with hearing voices because of the drug abuse. Part of me knew it was the drugs, and part of me got played,” he told me.
“I got so frustrated with the voices that I just took a knife [went downstairs from my house] and I walked around.”
The assault case and drug consumption meant that Khung was locked away until 2019, serving two sentences back to back.
A mother who never gave up
In an interview on the Daily Ketchup Podcast, Khung spoke about the pain of incarceration, mostly stemming from the suffering he was causing those near to him.
Of the stories that he has told from that period of his life, the one that stuck out the most to me — if only for how it illustrated Khung’s depravity at the time — involved the addict asking his mother for her ATM Card and squandering her life savings over four days in a gambling den.
“16 years,” Khung told me, referring to the length of time he’d been addicted to drugs.
“[My mother] never gave up. Never once did she chase me out of the house.”
Khung and his mother. Image courtesy of Simon Khung.
After he was released from prison in 2019, Khung relapsed into drug use again and quickly found himself spiralling into depression.
When an attempt at suicide failed, he finally checked himself into a halfway house in the hopes of getting off the drugs for good.
An accidental swipe
Though by the time Khung met Eong he was living a drug-free lifestyle, she still had to contend with many of the consequences of Khung’s past.
He had just finished a two-year stay at the halfway house but found that gainful employment was hard to come by.
Unable to find other jobs, Khung — with the help of his mother — purchased a bicycle and started food delivery riding.
It was around this time that he matched Eong on the dating app Bumble.
“Actually it was an accident,” she said, giggling.
Eong had just gotten off work and had tripped while holding her phone with the Bumble app open, inadvertently swiping right on Khung’s profile.
“At first I really didn’t believe it because it’s so like drama and movie right? Until she showed me the message that she sent to her friend,” said Khung.
That fortuitous swipe turned into months of messaging back and forth before they finally met for the first time in person in June 2021.
“My friend asked me to send something to another friend, and I asked him whether he wanted to go with me or not,” said Eong.
“Because it was in the afternoon, I felt very safe!”
S$50 vs S$5,000
That low-key, almost mundane setting for their first date would set the tone for the first year of their romantic partnership.
Unmotivated as a food delivery rider, Khung often worked just enough to earn S$50 — the minimum amount that can be withdrawn from the app.
“I won’t work again until my bank has S$0,” explained Khung.
In contrast, Eong was working in sales and had side income from teaching yoga and tutoring; her monthly earnings at the time totalled around S$5,000.
“I really don’t like to use her money at all — if I have the S$50 I’ll pay for both of our meals,” Khung said.
“For about one year, we never really went to a nice restaurant and we were always eating very budget food.”
A typical date in that first year saw Khung and Eong either dining on mixed rice, teochew porridge, or home-cooked meals courtesy of Khung’s mother.
"She never scolded me"
Less-than-glamorous dates aside, the relationship had wider financial implications for Eong.
She recalled that in those days, she had prepared herself to essentially take the role of breadwinner in the couple’s future family.
“When I met him, we knew that if we wanted to be together, we needed to save money. So I bought a 10-year savings plan. Just in case we have kids then the money can be saved for them,” she said.
“At least, no need to worry about their studies.”
“The thing about her is that she never scolded me,” said Khung.
“She will always encourage me… sometimes we would have talks and she would remind me that I needed to work hard, and that even if I didn’t like [delivery riding] I still had to do it for now. And then we would talk about my plans.”
One of those plans involved — in Khung’s words — “playing TikTok”.
“I told her very confidently, ‘I want to be a TikToker’.”
"If one day you don't have all this"
2.4 million likes and 171,800 followers later, Khung’s life is a far cry from that of the discouraged food delivery rider.
Today he has his own marketing and creator agency, Peace Street Productions, and an apparel line named Chance.
Khung sporting a t-shirt from his apparel company Change. Image courtesy of Simon Khung.
I couldn’t help but note how the purchase of the Rolex for Eong represented the scale of the turnaround in fortunes (both metaphorical and literal) for Khung.
However, not everyone seemed to appreciate what the moment meant for the couple.
“Many people who don’t know the details of our past story asked ‘you see if one day you don’t have all this, she still with you not?’,” Khung said.
“Even if one day, I’m back to zero and I’m in debt — you ask me am I still confident that she’ll stay, the answer is yes. I’m very confident because we came from there.”
Simonboy's regrets
Khung is well aware that the fickleness of social media algorithms and the audience’s taste means that going “back to zero” is a very real possibility; he’s in the process of investing in alternative sources of income and told me that 2024 would be “the year I venture into business”.
Furthermore, there are remnants from his previous state that continue to haunt him — for instance, his remorse for the victim of the assault that landed Khung in jail in 2015.
“I don’t know how to reach out… but if given the chance I would apologise to him and his family,” he said.
Then there is his father, who passed away in 2013.
“2010 when I was committing crimes for my drug use, one of [my schemes] is to ask my late dad to ferry me using his taxi to send drugs as it would be safer during midnight and it’s a taxi,” said Khung to me over WhatsApp a day after our interview.
While the scheme was designed to keep his father safe from prosecution (as he could play the role of an unwitting taxi driver in the event of a police roadblock) Khung has since wondered, if it came down to it, if he would have implicated his father.
“It’s one of my biggest regrets and I can’t do anything to make it up to him anymore,” he wrote.
Khung and his father. Image courtesy of Simon Khung.
Khung, his mother, and Eong. Image courtesy of Simon Khung.
Returning the favour
Yet while he has the means, Khung is determined to use the fruit of his newfound success to repay those who were there for him when he had nothing.
“Now I returned more than last time,” Khung said of his mother’s lost savings.
He’s also committed to using whatever influence he has as a positive force, volunteering as a peer-leader with the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association for instance.
As for Simongirl, the pair told me that they’re going to hold off any more extravagant gifts — for now.
“Not spending already,” Khung told me, smiling cheekily.
“We have an agreement. We are planning to buy a house next time.”
Top image courtesy of Simon Khung
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