22nd October 2026 – (Hong Kong) Julian Cheung Chi-lam, still in sharp form at 55, has admitted a selfish streak as a father: he steered his 19-year-old son Morton Cheung into a gap year on the road, because he wants the teenager to keep him company a little longer.
In a rare YouTube interview tracing Morton’s upbringing, Cheung also outlined his laid-back parenting, more than three decades with wife Anita Yuen, and why he sees a public career as a full “package” of pressure, not just applause. Busy with variety shows and concert tours, he has watched Morton edge into the spotlight and draw intense interest.
On schooling, Cheung said he has always run a free policy and never demanded top marks. Knowing one’s limits matters most, he joked: he was never academic material, nor, he believes, is his wife — so genetics suggest their son is much the same. From Morton’s first day of life, the couple’s only wish has been that he grow into a “healthy, happy good person”, a hope that has not shifted. University credentials are not the only path; Cheung never attended university himself but keeps reading and learning in what he calls society’s school, and wants Morton to explore his own interests without crushing pressure.
Cheung and Yuen have been together since 1993 — more than 33 years. His rule for keeping the marriage fresh is never to try changing the other person. Nobody is a hundred per cent perfect, including himself: if she tried to remake him he would feel uneasy, and the reverse would be true for her. He likens a couple to a mirror reflecting each other’s flaws and strengths. When a habit jars him, he offers only a light reminder, never a hard push. Yuen has many qualities he loves; the work is to accept the whole person and adjust, not nitpick.
As Morton’s passion for music grew, talk of a formal showbiz launch followed. Cheung remains cautious and has already given his son a “preventive jab”: celebrity life is a package, not pure success. Starting as “nobodies”, Cheung’s generation faced lighter scrutiny; Morton, he warned, will always be compared with his father, and a casual social-media line can be blown up or twisted. Small perks such as easier restaurant seating barely offset the heavier psychological load.
When Morton asked for a gap year before university to see the world, Cheung agreed at once — partly projecting his own childhood wish for options he never had. Explaining the pause in studies, he said he wanted to give Morton a year to choose, to “gap” first, and admitted he was “a bit more selfish”: he hopes the boy will stay with him longer, and when Morton sees his own gaps he will seek what he still needs to learn. From a father’s view, it may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance and worth it.
Morton now travels with Cheung’s concert band as a musician. Cheung calls the arrangement selfish without apology. After entering the industry, he barely saw his own parents; children lean hardest from birth to five, build friends from five to ten, hit adolescence around 15, and by 20 have their own romance and world. “I know many things will be lost — now I have the chance, why shouldn’t I be a bit selfish?” On the road he must focus on his own stage yet still wake Morton for call times, and when he hears a wrong chord in rehearsal, he waits until they are back at the hotel to correct him privately. The double load is tiring, he said, but he enjoys fighting shoulder to shoulder with his son.
He also revealed Morton’s new short haircut was his idea. Longer hair made the boy look too much like Yuen and too soft; Cheung urged a sharper cut to show his features. Because Yuen hates sudden style changes, father and son cut first and reported later — a comic scene after the fact.