The transcript below is from the video “The Tragic Tale of Jackie Chan’s Son” by SunnyV2.

SunnyV2:

Jackie Chan’s only son hasn’t had the easiest life. Between an unsuccessful film career and the time he spent in prison, Jaycee Chan has been unable to live up to the highest standard set by his father and it all began with Jaycee’s luxury upbringing after his birth in 1982. At this point in time, Jackie Chan was permanently busy with acting and would therefore, spend only two weeks per year with his son, which was “contained in the household as they were too famous to go outside”. His father’s busy schedule meant that Jaycee was raised almost entirely by his mother who began to spoil him with luxuries afforded by Jackie Chan’s fame and fortune.

SunnyV2:

Jackie wrote in his memoir: when he was little, Jaycee never had to worry about having enough food, how to pay his school fees, or if he needed to be driven anywhere, I would arrange it all. I regretted that later. No one should have such a good life from their birth.

Jackie Chan clearly believed this as his upbringing was almost the opposite. Brought up in dirt poor conditions by refugee parents who couldn’t even afford to pay for his birth, Jackie Chan was forced to develop discipline as well as an approach appreciation for scarcity. In addition to this, Jackie Chan’s youth consisted of drama training all day long from 5am to 11 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner. When he misbehaved he was beaten with canes, when he fell ill he was told to suck it up, which Jackie Chan has since highlighted as beneficial in comparison to his son’s upbringing.

SunnyV2:

Jaycee’s cushy childhood led Jackie Chan to write in his book: When he was a teenager, I definitely didn’t think Jaycee was pushing himself hard enough. I’d work all day, go jogging at night, then get back and say that he’d gone to bed even though it was only nine something. I’d grumble, he’s asleep already? I’d storm out in a bad mood and go jogging again thinking when I was his age. I wished he could follow me around all day to see how much I did. Sometimes I’ll have eight meetings in a row right up until midnight then I’ll go home do some exercise and read scripts.

Jaycee’s clear lack of drive and ambition in comparison to his father, led Jaycee to drop out of college at the end of his first year, stating, “I wanted to be a musician. All you can see in Virginia is sheep”. Although other sources state that he was expelled from the school as a result of excessive drinking, unclean living conditions, and two semesters worth of unwarranted absences. Jaycee’s desire to become a musician was against the will of Jackie who had not wished to see their son in Show Business. He wanted Jaycee to be a lawyer, and engineer, or a doctor as Jaycee’s mother had quote already lost her husband to this profession.

SunnyV2:

Despite the wish of his parents, Jaycee moved from Los Angeles to Hong Kong in 2004, where he planned on cultivating his own successful story in music stating: “It is my hope to become famous based on my own abilities rather than rely on my image”. Jaycee was so confident in moving to China that he gave up his American nationality in exchange for Chinese nationality. However, it’s possible that this choice came into question after he’d released his first album. Described in reviews as being a horrid absolute waste of money, the album simply titled Jaycee was a commercial failure. The reason for this, as described by Jaycee himself, was because Hong Kong is different from other places, you need to do music and movies, leading Jaycee to appear in his first film titled The Twins Effect 2, which received an IMDb rating of less than 5 out of 10 stars. And while it’d be ridiculous to expect an avengers level performance from Jaycee’s first on-screen appearance, the movies which followed weren’t that much better. He’d appear alongside his father for Jackie Chan’s 100th movie titled 1911 Revolution, yet the collaboration resulted in Jack least financially successful and least positively received picture to date, grossing only a $127,000 before receiving a score of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.

SunnyV2:

One year later, Jaycee would play the main character in a movie called Double Trouble, which also entered media headlines after grossing an even more pitiful $9,000 during its first two weeks, making it one of the biggest box office flops in history. To add in salt to injury, Jaycee would then play the main role in a movie called Whoever, which despite a government mandate forcing it to be played in half of the country’s cinemas, failed to crack the Chinese Top 10 and has received only 15 ratings on IMDb since its release in 2012. The only positive news for Jaycee seemed to have been coming from his music career as his second studio album would top Taiwanese charts in 2010. Although it seems the album hasn’t achieved much long-term success as there’s not even a single online review for the music and it took about 30 minutes of digging just to find the track list, the performance of the album was unimportant anyway because on the fourth 18th of August 2014, Jaycee would find himself in a profound new media scandal making every prior controversy seem insignificant.

SunnyV2:

Police would upload footage of Jaycee Chan being arrested at his parents $10 million luxury Beijing apartment during which he’d admit to having approximately 100g of weed in his cupboard. This was extra bad for the Chan family’s reputation as Jackie Chan had been China’s official anti-drug Ambassador since 2009. For this reason, Jackie Chan would take to social media to apologize writing: For my son Jaycee to get into such trouble, I’m very angry and astonished. As a public figure I’m ashamed, as a father I’m heartbroken. I can’t begin to describe his mother’s pain. I failed to be a good father and I deserve the blame. I would take the responsibility and apologize to the public on behalf of Jaycee.

SunnyV2:

In the process, Jackie practically disowned his son, stating that he hadn’t and didn’t plan on using any of his connections to lessen Jaycee’s sentence. “I have not visited him even till now. I did not even use any connections to call anyone. If Jaycee only went in jail for one week or 10 days, how would the public look at us? We are public figures and all the more, we have to abide by the laws, which was accompanied by Jackie Chan somewhat hilariously telling Jaycee’s lawyer to slap him twice for me. While Jackie Chan wanted absolutely nothing to do with Jaycee, the Chinese government took the opposite approach making a public anti-drug example out of Jaycee by televising the trial, which would happen approximately 4 months after his arrest. Jason was sentenced to 6 months in prison and was ordered to pay a $320 fine for possession as well as the crime of sheltering others to take drugs. Jaycee took this sentence humbly stating, “I’ve broken the law and should be punished. When I returned to society, I will not repeat this because I have let my family and friends down yet again”. Although this wasn’t enough to satisfy his parents who didn’t even attend the trial.

SunnyV2:

Whilst in prison, Jaycee would send letters to his mother in which he explained that he experimented with drugs because of the bad crowd he was mixing with and started relying on drugs to soothe himself whenever he felt upset. Jaycee also wrote about the struggles he faced growing up in a famous family and revealed that the expectations of fame placed a lot of pressure on him. He then expressed his unhappiness with Jackie for not showing him enough concern. However, his father wasn’t rushing to offer any kind of sympathy. Jackie Chan would state in an interview, I hope to be an anti-drug ambassador for life. I even hope that after Jaycee is out, he can be an anti-drug ambassador too, telling everyone to stay away from drugs, which was followed by Jackie stating publicly that he supports the death penalty for certain serious offenses. Additionally, Jackie Chan would announce that he would donate the entirety of his reported $350 million net worth to charity and not pass it on to his son Jaycee, adding if he is capable he can make his own money. If he is not, then he will just be wasting my money.

SunnyV2:

The problem is Jaycee’s owning capacity has been stifled pretty severely as a result of the public sentencing. For example, in the three years prior to his arrest Jaycee acted in 10 different movies. However, since his imprisonment almost 10 years ago, he’s appeared in only three films, one of which he wasn’t even credited for. As a result of the scandal, Jaycee also lost endorsements from Adidas, Nivea, Yishion, Johnson & Johnson contact lenses, Stride Gum, KFC, and Chevrolet with this rock bottom causing him to return to America even though he was no longer a citizen there.

The father and son still share a residence in Hong Kong, though they don’t spend much time together. As an actor, a businessman in his city’s unofficial goodwill ambassador-at-large, Jackie Chan has a busy schedule. The two seem to have reconciled since Jaycee moved back to the USA. Yet, Jaycee continues to differ himself stating, I don’t want to always follow my dad’s footsteps .I want to be different, adding that he’s tired of being a person in his father’s shadow. Since moving back to the US, Jaycee has made efforts to turn his life around, directing his first film in 2021 titled Good Night Beijing and according to IMDb, he has another two movies on the way.