One look at Shaun Chen’s Instagram account will tell you that he’s a loving husband and father. The 42-year-old gave love a second chance in 2014, three years after his divorce from actress Michelle Chia.

Shaun’s relationship with his wife, 31-year-old Celine Chin, was mostly kept under wraps for over a year until October 2015 when he announced that he was married and had a baby on the way. In this week’s episode of Quan Yifeng’s talk show Hear U Out, he revealed how he got to know Celine and why he doesn’t have lofty expectations of his daughters, Nellie, five, and Neia, three.

Shaun looked a tad sheepish when asked about how he met Celine and said, “Technology is very advanced. We got to know each other online.” He chuckled nervously as Yifeng assured him that loads of couples (including Sheila Sim and her husband Deon Woo) also met online.

Looking a tad more confident, Shaun continued, “I got to know her [in 2014] when I was filming The Journey: Tumultuous Times. I was always tired after filming so I would go home after work and check out pretty girls on my phone. I happened to see one who was not bad, so I sent her a [DM].”

Yifeng couldn’t help but to laugh at Shaun’s admission, pointing out that he is a celeb and probably shouldn’t have been sliding into strangers’ DMs.

Shaun reasoned, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I was single at the time! It’s fine since I didn’t have a girlfriend. [She replied my DMs and] we would meet up and go for meals together in Penang while I was still filming there.”

Even after production wrapped and Shaun headed back to Singapore, they kept in touch and took their relationship to the next level with a little initiative from Celine.

The actor revealed, “I told her that I was going to New Zealand alone for a holiday, and she said that she wanted to come along with me. I wondered what she was up to but I agreed since both of us are adults. That’s how we started dating.”

According to Shaun’s Instagram posts, his trip to NZ took place in October 2014. Nine months later, the couple registered their marriage, and their older daughter was born five months later.

These days, Shaun has his hands full as a family man. With Nellie set to enter primary school next year, Shaun told Yifeng that he’s not about to become a helicopter parent. He laughed, “I don’t need my daughters to study too hard. All I want is for them to be happy and healthy. My wife and I are bad at studying so I believe that my daughters won’t be that book smart either. But I believe that there’ll be something that they’re good at when they grow up, and that’s enough for us.”

You can watch Shaun's interview on Hear U Out here.

Photos: Shaun Chen's Instagram, Mediacorp