EXO’s Lay Reveals His Cooking Skills

Updated: Jul 9, 2020

张艺兴 Zhang Yixing who goes by the stage name LAY or Lay Zhang is the only remaining Chinese member of EXO. He wasn’t a fan of the name as it sounded to him like “lei” the Chinese word for tired but said SM Entertainment gave him the name because there is a character named Huaze Lei who "is talented and likes music quite a bit" in the Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden.

He is quite busy as a singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, actor, writer (he took the fourth place on 'The 10th Chinese Celebrity Writers List', becoming the youngest celebrity author to enter the charts), and producer.

He had some difficulty performing with EXO recently due to political issues between his home country of China and Korea and a very busy schedule in China. Like the other members, who have yet to enlist, he has been focusing on solo releases and acting. He was the lead dancer for EXO-M (the Mandarin language subgroup of EXO) where he often took on the role of team chef. His hobbies are said to include cooking to relive stress. In 2014 he had been on Star Chef, a cooking show in China which can be challenging for someone like him with hemophilia.

So four years later in a 2018 interview for Buzz Feed the topic of cooking came up. So what was his favorite recipe to prepare? Check out the clip.

The full interview below includes his embarrassment over his cat’s name.