Raymond Chow’s documented role was not in causing Bruce Lee’s death, but in trying to manage and partially conceal the compromising circumstances of where and with whom Lee died.theringer+2
After learning that Lee was unconscious at actress Betty Ting Pei’s flat, Chow went there and saw Lee’s body on her bed, with Ting Pei in shock.theringer
Aware of the scandal potential—Hong Kong’s biggest star dead in his mistress’s apartment—he focused on avoiding that scenario becoming public, rather than immediately treating it as a straightforward medical emergency at the scene.sbs+1
Accounts based on Matthew Polly’s biography describe Chow redressing Lee, then arranging for Ting Pei’s personal doctor, Dr. Eugene Chu, to come, and ultimately for Lee’s body to be taken to Baptist Hospital, where he was officially pronounced dead.biography+1
Golden Harvest, Chow’s company, issued a press statement saying Bruce Lee had collapsed at home while walking in his garden with his wife Linda, not at Ting Pei’s apartment.biography+2
Chow and others then tried to maintain a version of events in which the visit to Ting Pei’s flat was framed as a business meeting about casting her in Game of Death, downplaying or denying any affair.yahoo+2
This initial false narrative about the location and context of Lee’s collapse is what most historians and journalists mean when they speak of Chow’s role in a “coverup.”sbs+2
Chow’s stated and inferred motives were to protect Lee’s public image, shield Lee’s family (particularly his young children), and limit damage to Golden Harvest and the careers of everyone involved.theringer+2
The concealment concerned the circumstances (mistress, apartment, timeline), not the medical findings: the official cause remained cerebral edema, and no credible evidence has surfaced in mainstream biographical or investigative work that Chow poisoned or otherwise physically harmed Lee.biography+2
More conspiratorial claims (triad involvement, insurance plots, murder) mostly come from speculative commentary and online discussions rather than sourced documentary evidence, and they have not been substantiated by serious biographers or formal investigations.popcultmaster+2
Modern biographies and documentaries generally frame Chow as Lee’s producer and business partner who mishandled the crisis by orchestrating a misleading public story, but not as a direct agent in Lee’s medical death.sbs+2
His actions—re-dressing the body, routing the removal through a friendly doctor, and authorizing a false press release—are widely seen as a reputational damage‑control operation that backfired by fueling decades of suspicion and mythmaking.theringer+2