Taiwanese singer Leehom Wang, who has been developing in mainland China, has been exposed by his ex-wife Li Lianglei for his chaotic private life. As Li Lianglei provided more and more evidence, Leehom Wang quickly became the focus of public opinion and was unanimously spurned by netizens and the official media of China.
Leehom Wang posted an article on December 20 saying he was ready to quit work temporarily to accompany his parents and children. The response was accused of substantiating the allegations and was met with more scorn.
On December 20, Leehom Wang apologized in a Weibo post saying, “Men should still take all the responsibility, I will no longer do any explanation or defense, I did not run the marriage well, I brought distress to the family, did not give the public a good image of the idol should be, it is all my fault.”
Leehom Wang said in his statement that he would temporarily withdraw from work to leave time for his parents and children, and said he would transfer the house where Li and his three children live to the woman’s name.
But in contrast to Li Lianglei’s evidence one after another and the bottom line when faced with questions, Leehom Wang’s response was mocked in the message section as a disguised admission. Some netizens said that the statement translated is, “do not dare to be stubborn, can not explain, let it be”. Some netizens directly said, “Temporary withdrawal from work? You are going to quit permanently, right?”
On the afternoon of December 15, Leehom Wang issued a Weibo saying that he had filed for divorce, saying that his private life was simple and pure and that Li Lianglei would be a family forever. The divorce of Leehom Wang and Li Lianglei was confirmed.
On December 17, Li Lianglei sent a long article accusing Leehom Wang of having a chaotic private life, calling prostitutes, dating, and constantly pushing for babies, and that she has been humiliated and coldly violated by Leehom Wang and his family for years.
Sun Yu, a member of Singaporean Chinese pop twin girl group By2, was subsequently revealed to be involved in Leehom Wang’s marriage. In the early morning of December 18, the By2 studio posted a report receipt, stating that she had called the police for defamation. Later, Li Lianglei forwarded the by2 studio Weibo and asked for the police contact information to provide evidence.
On December 19, Taiwan media released a handwritten letter from Leehom Wang’s father, Wang’s father said that Li Lianglei relied on pregnancy to get married with Wang that year, and after the marriage she and Leehom Wang have been a lot of conflicts, saying that his son is not a loser and did not cheat.
The same day, Li Lianglei responded to Leehom Wang’s father’s handwritten letter, saying, “Daddy Wang would still lie like this for his 45-year-old son when he was so old.” She felt very heartbroken. She asked Leehom Wang to stand up and face it by herself at 3 pm on the 19th by apologizing publicly, or she will prosecute.
On December 19, China’s CCTV “silenced” the ending song sung by Leehom Wang in the series “The Great Battle”. Infiniti Motors quickly deleted the Weibo news related to Leehom Wang and announced the termination of brand cooperation, and it was less than two days before its official announcement that Leehom Wang became the brand spokesperson. Subsequently, other brands including Shulang, Zhou Dasheng Jewelry, etc. issued statements announcing that they would terminate their cooperation with Leehom Wang or not renew their contracts.
The website of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China said on December 19, without naming names, that “collapse of persona” has recently become a keyword in public opinion, and reiterated that celebrity artists “must be investigated for violations of law and morality, without any exceptions”.
The Chinese Women’s Daily twice commented on Leehom Wang’s incident, saying that when a star is not moral, his appearance and talent are not a shield. The commentary pointed out that an open and tolerant society can accept new and different music styles, but it does not mean that it can accept indulgence and excess in private life, let alone recklessness and performance persona. The fans’ support for the stars is not just a “tolerance” in public opinion.
The article criticized that without virtue, life will be difficult to travel steadily and far, which is the iron law. The “stars” with deficient virtues are destined to become only “shooting stars” and will not have a bright and long-term stage.
On Dec. 20, China Women’s Daily spoke out again about the situation of full-time housewives, saying they should guard against harm in the name of “love” and the risk of leaving the workplace.
The commentary pointed out that the family is an important arena for advancing gender equality. Whether celebrities or ordinary people, emotional marriage should never be a stereotypical breeding ground for backward gender concepts in the name of “love”. Today, when gender equality has become a consensus, we need a clean social environment, we need healthy and advanced gender concepts to be more deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and in the pursuit of comprehensive development and self-fulfillment of women, they need more help, support and respect.
The entertainment industry is a place of fame and fortune, full of power and money, and therefore very easy to challenge the bottom line of human nature. Recently, the Chinese Communist Party has been making a lot of efforts to clean up the entertainment industry, as the huge income gap and the moral bottom line have made the netizens less tolerant of artists’ personal ethics and moral judgments.
It can be predicted that Leehom Wang’s road to stardom has probably come to an end, and artists in the entertainment industry will be more cautious and scrupulous in their actions. Source