Since the 1st of July, the beloved Chinese actress Fan Bingbing has been missing from social media and has not made any public appearances. Even though we might think that taking a break from the public eye is completely understandable, the reason behind her disappearance is a bit more complicated.
Fan Bingbing is a 36 years old Chinese actress, model, singer, more broadly an absolute superstar. Mostly known for her roles in X-Men: Days of Future Past and in I Am Not Madame Bovary, she is considered to be the highest paid actress of the century. Fan made it to the top of Forbes magazine’s list of the top-earning Chinese celebrities, with an income over the past year of 300 million yuan or over 40 million USD.
One of the plausible explanations for her disappearance is tax evasion. The Chinese government could have arrested the actress, who is rumoured to have been under the “Ying Yang contract,” which is a contract made for stars to receive a hefty salary while declaring another lower official salary to the tax authorities. A former Chinese CCTV presenter has posted online that Fan was officially paid 10 million yuan for a 4-day-long project, but received an additional, unreported amount of 60 million yuan. When the documents were released, it caused a huge scandal, making Fan’s management to publicly declare that she has been a victim. However, no denials were made.
That scandal caused the investigation of her studio back in the province of Jiangsu. Moreover, the Chinese government has created laws that restrict the luxurious lifestyles of stars by mandating that that “on-screen performers’ salaries should be capped at 40 per cent of the total production costs.”
https://twitter.com/OH_mes/status/1040107992899710976
However, that is not all Fan had to deal with. China’s Film and Television Star Social Responsibility Report is a report that ranks celebrities as per their “professional work, charitable actions and personal integrity.” The higher a celebrity is ranked, the more he or she is considered as a proper role model. The less the celebrity is ranked, the more he or she is considered a bad role model. The report being very strict with celebrities, only 9 made it past 60%. On the other side, Fan had the worst rank as she was placed as the last of the list with 0% due to her scandal making her have a “negative” social impact.
On august 31th, she was allegedly seen at Los Angeles, seeking refuge in the US to avoid all those scandals. It was rumoured that she sought refuge from film star Jackie Chan, who advised her to do so. No more than a week later, Chinese state-run publication Securities Daily declared that Fan was placed “Under control” and she accepts the legal decision. Which might mean she could be imprisoned.
The actress might have been banned from acting which lead us to wonder if she will still be part of the upcoming movie 335 starring Penelope Cruz and Jessica Chastain.
A lot of rumours have since surfaced on the internet, some people thinking she was arrested and deserve this fate, saying that this will make china into a more fair country. Others are standing with her saying that this is all just a scam made to tear her reputation apart.
Let me repeat again, Fan Bingbing was never arrested and even her manager said it herself. That article is spreading lies to make up a story. https://t.co/BgXfIB5V5P pic.twitter.com/UineppgxqH
— Fan Bingbing 范冰冰 Pics (@fbb_pics) September 8, 2018
