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?

Jun 30 , 2019

John Lone starred as Song Liling, the Chinese opera singer and spy, in the 1993 film M. Butterfly. The film is based on the love affair between the opera singer and spy Shi Peipu and French diplomat Bernard Boursicot. The couple’s story remains fascinating a decade after Shi Peipu’s death.

The Chinese opera singer and spy Shi Peipu died 10 years ago, but his explosive affair with French diplomat Bernard Boursicot fascinates to this day

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.

Jeremy Irons (right) and John Lone starred in the 1993 film M Butterfly, which was based on Shi Peipu and Bernard Boursicot’s love affair.

However, when Bernard Boursicot, Shi’s former lover, was asked about Shi’s death in a telephone interview, he showed no sympathy.

“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.

Boursicot granted Wadler lengthy interviews about deeply personal matters as well as access to close family members and all his records.

Shi and Boursicot’s affair is one of the strangest espionage stories of recent times.

What happened to the couple? And why is their story regarded as one of the strangest international espionage tales of recent times?

The first encounter

The story began in 1964, when Shi and Boursicot met at a diplomatic cocktail party in Beijing.

The then 26-year-old Shi had already found some success as an actor and Beijing opera singer. One of his famous roles was playing a dan (a female role) in the opera, The Story of the Butterfly.

In the mid-1960s, Shi was a mildly successful actor and Beijing opera singer when he met French diplomat Bernard Boursicot.

Shi, who could speak fluent French, was also a Chinese teacher in the diplomatic community.