These 4 local celebrities were SIA flight attendants before joining showbiz — can you name them all?

Talent can be found almost anywhere and this is also true for our local showbiz, especially for the older generation of artistes.

If you've been keeping up with the talkshows, you'll realise that many of the local celebrities entered the industry by chance — some were scouted, some joined the Star Search programme, and some were working in completely different jobs.

Well, here's a little bit of trivia. Did you know that some of our more famous celebs used to work as flight attendants before they became stars?

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Sharon Au

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Before she made her mark co-hosting City Beat with Kym Ng and Bryan Wong, Sharon Au joined Singapore Airlines (SIA) as a cabin crew. She was good at what she did and snagged the Best Trainee Award at her graduation ceremony in 1994.

But as luck would have it, she decided to audition for Toy Factory's Mandarin version of the Hong Kong stage classic I Have a Date With Spring, and that led her to be discovered and inducted into showbiz.

She had an illustrious career with Mediacorp but decided to leave and move to Paris where she now works in a private equity firm. That said, Sharon still looks back fondly on her air stewardess days and is proud to say that she can still fit into the iconic sarong kebaya after all this time.

ALSO READ: Sharon Au resigned 'dramatically' from Mediacorp because she was scolded for sharing her ideas

Thomas Ong

He joined SIA as a flight attendant after he graduated from school and was fortunate enough (or maybe he's just that good) to get in on his first try, he said during the meWATCH talkshow Hear U Out. At that time, the standards for flight stewards were really high so it was no easy feat.

Thomas thought that being a flight attendant meant he could travel and see the world for free but slowly got bored of travelling to the same few places.

He quit after a couple of years, but he got scouted to be a model and signed with a renowned agency in Singapore. While doing a fashion catwalk for a TV show at Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) — before it was restructured into Mediacorp — he was invited to give showbiz a try.

ALSO READ: Gossip mill: Thomas Ong offended a director because of his bad temper and frank nature

Kym Ng

The firecracker of a host is fiercely private and it shows — not much turned up when we tried to Google her past.

She was said to be a flight attendant with SIA but it's unclear how long she was with them for or what her experience was like. However, local television host Quan Yi Fong mentioned on Hear U Out that it took Kym 10 tries before succeeding on her application — unlike Thomas.

But, this was when she met her husband, she told 8 Days in an interview. The couple met at a social gathering while she was an air stewardess and they've been together ever since.

After she quit her job as a cabin crew, she became a singer and subsequently joined TCS where she switched to hosting and acting.

ALSO READ: Vivian Lai flirts with skateboard instructors, kena suan by Zoe Tay

Kelly Poon

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She joined SIA as an air stewardess after graduating from Singapore Polytechnic in 2004, but emerged from 2005's Project SuperStar competition with a recording deal with Universal Music.

Kelly has released five albums since she started her career as a singer and is active in both Singapore and Taiwan.

At one point in her career, there were rumours that she was going to quit singing and return to being a cabin crew. However, she clarified that she meant should she leave the music industry one day, she would go back to being a flight attendant because that is what she would like to work as.

ALSO READ: Project SuperStar singer Kelly Poon teaches Taiwanese guests how to yam seng in her wedding dinner

bryanlim@asiaone.com