Who was Shi Peipu, a Chinese spy and opera star who cross-dressed as a woman and had a long-term sexual relationship with a French diplomat?<br /><br />Who was Shi Peipu, a Chinese spy who cross-dressed as a woman?<br /><br />Shi Peipu, a Chinese opera singer who was born in Shandong province, died in a French nursing home in Paris, aged 70, on June 30, 2009. An aide revealed his death to Agence France-Presse.<br /><br />However, when Bernard Boursicot, Shi’s former lover, was asked about Shi’s death in a telephone interview, he showed no sympathy. <br /><br />“He did so many things against me that he had no pity for, I think it is stupid to play another game now and say I am sad. The plate is clean now. I am free,” Boursicot told Joyce Wadler, a New York Times journalist and author of Liaison: The True Story of the M. Butterfly Affair, published in 1994. <br /><br />Boursicot granted Wadler lengthy interviews about deeply personal matters as well as access to close family members and all his records. <br /><br />What happened to the couple? And why is their story regarded as one of the strangest international espionage tales of recent times? <br /><br />Follow STYLE on:<br />https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style<br />https://www.facebook.com/scmpstyle<br />https://www.instagram.com/scmp_style<br />https://www.twitter.com/scmp_style<br />https://www.youtube.com/c/SCMPStyle<br />https://www.dailymotion.com/scmp_style
