Shi Pei Pu (Chinese: 时佩璞; pinyin: Shí Pèipú; 21 December 1938 – 30 June 2009) [1] was a Chinese opera singer from Beijing. He became a spy and obtained secrets from Bernard Boursicot, an employee in the French embassy, during a 20-year-long sexual affair in which the performer convinced Boursicot that he was a woman.

Apr 3, 2024 · Shi told the accountant he'd been forced to dress like a man and brought up as one at his parents wishes, but was really a female Beijing opera singer and the pair then embarked on a romantic - and sexual - relationship for almost two decades.

Nov 13, 2023 · In 1964, Bernard Boursicot, an employee of the French embassy in Beijing, met a beautiful opera singer named Shi Pei Pu at a Christmas party. The two immediately hit it off, and soon embarked on a secret 18-year-long love affair.

Bernard Boursicot (born 12 August 1944) is a French diplomat who was caught in a Chinese honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in espionage) by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot claimed he believed to be female.

Jun 30, 2019 · 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.

Jun 1, 2022 · Shi Pei Pu seemed like the ideal woman veiled in a web of lies, espionage, and manipulation. On June 30, 2009, Shi Pei Pu died in a Parisian nursing home at 70. Born in Shandong Province, Shi had enthralled Europe with his* operatic singing and graceful stage presence in the 1960s.

Jul 6, 2009 · Shi Pei Pu, a Chinese operatic soprano who along with his French lover was convicted of espionage and whose complicated affair inspired the Tony Award-winning Broadway play “M. Butterfly” and the...

Jul 2, 2009 · Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer and spy whose sexually convoluted love affair with a French Embassy worker created one of the strangest cases in international espionage and was the inspiration...

Aug 15, 1993 · The case becomes a national scandal. "Espion ou Espionne?" reads the headline in Le Monde on July 8. The courts order a physical examination of Shi Pei Pu, who is found to be a normal man.

Shi Peipu, a Chinese opera singer and spy, was involved in a 20-year relationship with Bernard Boursicot, who remained unaware of Shi Peipu's true identity. This story became widely known in the late 1980s and later inspired the play "M. Butterfly" by Chinese-American writer and playwright David Henry Hwang.