Cathy Tie was barred from entering China while traveling from Manila, with no explanation given. She had already given up her Los Angeles home and brought her dog in preparation for the move. She had a brief relationship earlier that year with He Jiankui, the scientist who performed controversial gene-editing on human embryos.
He Jiankui. JK is fine.
JK. And so he was a Chinese scientist, did gene editing on two children. Huge controversy. I mean, the scientific world— they were still embryos— was trying to alter their genes to prevent them from getting HIV later in life. The scientific community recoiled. The arguments were this technology is not ready. JK ended up spending 3 years in prison. He comes out, he starts a new lab where the two of you meet. And then for a moment in time, it looks like you were maybe going to start this type type of company in China.
You know, earlier this year we did have a very short-lived personal relationship. You got married, and then we're heading back to China. Then I was banned from China.
You obviously did not see that coming.
Oh no, I wish I knew, because if I had known, I would not have gone in the first place. Because what happened was I gave up my place in LA, my car, I moved all my furniture into storage, I brought all my things with me, including my dog. We're more than halfway to China in Manila, Philippines. That's when I found out I couldn't travel China. So I literally didn't have a place to go back to. I had no home. So I had to go to like my parents' house for a bit. I stayed at hotels and literally right now I'm still staying at a hotel. So I had no idea. I really didn't know.
So somebody was watching something, but they didn't raise concerns to you or anything. They just didn't let you in.
Yeah, no, I wish I knew. But you know, on the plane, it's weird because, you know, from LA to Manila, it's a 14.5-hour flight. I was with my dog and I would see the flight attendants like whispering about me, you know, just The whole flight I would catch them in the lavatory area and they're like just whispering and being like, "That's Kathy." And I'm like, "Uh, what's going on?" And now it makes sense because as soon as I landed, I got off the plane and there was someone holding up a sign with my name. They brought me over to the transfer desk and that's when I found out. They took my boarding pass and that's when I found out I couldn't go.
