Bentley Signs Michelle Yeoh as Its Third Brand Ambassador in a Month
The Oscar-winning actor joins Bentley’s growing ambassador roster weeks after the Torcal reveal — and her husband, Jean Todt, already owns three of Crewe’s cars.
Bentley has named Michelle Yeoh a global brand ambassador, the second such signing in a week and the latest in a run of appointments timed to the arrival of the Torcal, the brand's first all-electric model. The announcement came out of Crewe on October 13 with a set of black-and-white portraits shot by Greg Williams, Bentley's external creative director.
Yeoh, who became the first Asian woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in 2023 for Everything Everywhere All at Once, is a familiar presence to American audiences from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi, and Wicked. Bentley says her ties to the brand predate the contract: she trained in ballet in the UK as a teenager and later studied drama in Cheshire, about 15 miles from the factory.
The closer connection is through her husband. Jean Todt, the former FIA president and Ferrari team boss, keeps a 1965 Continental S3, a 2019 Mulsanne, and a 2025 Flying Spur Speed 1st Edition, according to the release. Bentley describes the deal as formalizing a relationship that already existed, which is a fair summary.
A roster built in a hurry
Yeoh's appointment lands six days after Bentley handed Mats Hummels a two-year ambassador deal aimed at German-speaking Europe. Before that, Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo took on a UK and Europe brief late last year, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas became the brand's first global ambassador in April, fronting a Continental GT campaign that Williams also shot.
The mandates differ. Hummels and Gakpo are regional signings tied to specific markets. Yeoh, like Chopra Jonas, is global, and Bentley's marketing director, Ben Whattam, ties her directly to the Torcal, saying the company wants her to carry the character of the new car rather than the back catalog.
Williams and designer Mai Ikuzawa were themselves appointed as Bentley's first external creative directors in September 2025, on one-year terms, with Williams charged with overhauling the brand's entire photographic style. The monochrome Yeoh portraits, shot on the street in London with a Bentayga EWB, are the clearest example yet of what that overhaul looks like.
Why now
The Torcal is the most consequential product Bentley has launched in a decade: an 800-volt electric SUV with up to 876 hp and 400-kW charging, hand-assembled in a 1938 building in Crewe. US pricing and EPA range figures are still unannounced. That gap, between a car that has been revealed and one you can actually order, is exactly the window in which a brand leans on faces rather than specs.
Bentley hasn't said how long Yeoh's contract runs or which markets it prioritizes, and there is no campaign film yet. Expect one to surface closer to Torcal deliveries.
