Benjamin Heng's Wife Michelle Ng: What Happened, and Where the Family Is Now

"Our princess keeps asking why? Come visit in her dreams..."

On a Saturday morning in June 2019, Singapore actor and host Benjamin Heng woke up and found that his wife, Michelle Ng, had died in her sleep. She was 43. Their daughter Sophie was ten. The Instagram post he wrote the next morning, promising to raise their daughter “to the best that she can be”, was shared across the country, and it’s still the reason many people search for his name.

Six years on, the family’s story has a new chapter. Below is what happened, and where the family is now.

Michelle Ng died in her sleep on 15 June 2019, and in November 2025 Benjamin Heng remarried, with his daughter Sophie, now 16, at his side.

His story became, for many Singapore parents, a public example of what it looks like to grieve a spouse while raising a child alone, and then to rebuild.

What happened in June 2019

Michelle Ng, a former marketing manager who’d left her career to be a stay-at-home mother, passed away in her sleep on the morning of Saturday 15 June 2019. No cause was made public. The wake was held at Bukit Batok Street 52, with the cremation at Mandai on 18 June.

Benjamin’s post on 16 June read, in part:

“You’re in a better place now… But you will always hold a special place in Sophie’s & my heart… We love you & miss you dearly! Our princess keeps asking why? Come visit in her dreams… Meanwhile rest well…” “Sophie said u appeared in her dreams last night! Don’t stop okie? #IWillRaiseOurDaughterToTheBestThatSheCanBe”

Friends from the local entertainment industry, including many who’d worked with him on stage and screen, turned up at the wake, and the post drew thousands of messages from parents who recognised the particular shape of that grief: a child asking why, and a parent with no answer.

Who Benjamin Heng is

Benjamin Heng, 49 at the time of his 2025 wedding, has been part of Singapore’s entertainment scene since the 1990s. A Fly Entertainment artiste for much of his career, he’s an actor, television host and theatre performer, best known to a generation of viewers from local television and for co-starring with Shane Pow in the 2013 film The Recruit Diaries. He fronted the band The Sputniks and was the original drummer for Pink Punk, the band he formed with film director Kelvin Tong. Alongside acting he works as a property agent, which became the steadier income in the years he was raising Sophie on his own.

Raising Sophie

The hashtag in his 2019 post was a promise, and by his own account he kept it in the ordinary, unglamorous way single parents do: school runs, dinners, being the only adult in the house. That’s much the same territory other local celebrity parents describe when they talk about warm-but-firm positive parenting, holding the boundaries while still being the soft place to land. Sophie, born in 2009, turned 16 in 2025. She’s reported to have auditioned in Seoul for SM Entertainment’s K-pop trainee programme, a detail her father shared with the mix of pride and nerves familiar to any parent of a teenager with a big ambition.

Remarrying in 2025

In May 2025, Benjamin announced on Facebook that he and his Japanese partner Nana had exchanged vows “to become one Mr and Mrs Heng”. Their relationship dates back to at least 2021, according to his own Instagram highlights. On Saturday 8 November 2025 they held their wedding at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore, with Shane Pow hosting the dinner and guests including Rebecca Lim, Allan Wu, Maxi Lim, Alaric Tay and Bernard Tan.

In his speech he promised “to love, care for, and stand by her for the rest of my life”. Coverage in Singapore and Malaysia led with the six-year gap since Michelle’s death, and readers’ responses were overwhelmingly warm, many from widowed parents who saw in it permission to hope for the same.

When a child loses a parent suddenly

Benjamin’s line, “our princess keeps asking why”, is the part parents remember, because it’s the part nobody is prepared for. Families blindsided by a medical emergency know the feeling too, whether that’s a death in sleep with no explanation or a crisis like HELLP syndrome in pregnancy, where everything changes in a matter of hours. Child grief specialists describe a few patterns that help to know about:

Children grieve in bursts. A ten-year-old can be inconsolable at bedtime and playing normally an hour later. It isn’t denial, it’s how children carry something too big to hold all at once.
“Why” doesn’t need an answer. It needs to be allowed. “I don’t know why, and I miss her too” is a complete response.
Routine is comfort. School, meals, the same bedtime. The surviving parent keeping the ordinary going is itself the reassurance.
Grief comes back at milestones. Birthdays, PSLE results, a first day of secondary school. Expect it, and name it: “I wish Mum could see this.”
A new partner isn’t a replacement. Children do best when the lost parent stays part of the family’s conversation, photographs and rituals, and when a new relationship is introduced slowly and honestly.

In Singapore, school counsellors are the first port of call for a grieving child, and family service centres offer bereavement support for families who need more. If withdrawal, hopelessness or talk of not wanting to be here shows up months later, that’s the point to reach for child and teen mental health help instead of waiting to see if it passes.

Common questions

What happened to Benjamin Heng’s wife?

Michelle Ng, his first wife, passed away in her sleep on 15 June 2019, aged 43. The cause wasn’t made public.

Who is Benjamin Heng’s wife now?

Nana, his Japanese partner. They exchanged vows in May 2025 and held their wedding at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore on 8 November 2025.

Does Benjamin Heng have children?

One daughter, Sophie, from his marriage to Michelle Ng. She was ten when her mother died and turned 16 in 2025.

How old is Benjamin Heng?

He was 49 at his wedding in November 2025.

What is Benjamin Heng known for?

Acting and hosting on Singapore television, theatre, the film The Recruit Diaries (2013), and music with The Sputniks and Pink Punk. He also works as a property agent.

Why parents still share this story

Six years sat between the wake at Bukit Batok and the dinner at the Ritz-Carlton, and most of those years were school runs and quiet evenings that nobody posted about. That’s the bit widowed parents point to when they pass the story around: you can miss someone for the rest of your life and still build something worth showing up for, and a 16-year-old can watch her father do both without being asked to choose.