Celebrity scandal exposes surrogacy discontent in China
Appeared in BioNews 1080
Chinese actor Zheng Shuang has been dropped from her professional partnerships, including her role as brand ambassador for fashion house Prada, after being embroiled in a surrogacy scandal.
Zheng is being accused of undertaking a surrogacy agreement with her ex-partner, actor Zhang Heng, but then decided to abandon her two surrogate children in the United States, leaving him to take care of them alone. The case has sparked debate around surrogacy in China, where it is illegal.
Zhang posted on Chinese microblogging platform, Weibo, that he had gone to the United States to care for their two abandoned children. News outlets noticed that Zheng had never appeared to be pregnant in public, so sourced the children s birth certificates and found the two children were born one month apart, clearly indicating the use of a surrogacy arrangement by the couple.
Wednesday, 20 Jan 2021 05:20 PM MYT
Chinese actress Zheng Shuang has been dropped from her Prada ambassador gig, barely a week after being appointed. Oriental Images pic via Reuters
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BEIJING, Jan 20 Italian luxury label Prada has ended all cooperation with Chinese actress Zheng Shuang, a week after appointing her as a brand ambassador, after she was engulfed in a surrogacy controversy that has enthralled the Chinese public.
Prada made the announcement late yesterday, after coming under heavy criticism on Chinese social media for cooperating with 30-year-old Zheng, whose former partner Zhang Heng has accused her of trying to abandon two young children the couple had through a US-based surrogate.
January 22, 2021
Zheng Shuang.
The backlash continues full throttle.
Two days after popular Chinese actress Zheng Shuang was accused by her former partner, producer Zhang Heng, of abandoning their two children born to US-based surrogate mothers, Chinese authorities and a host of commercial brands linked to Zheng have reacted to the controversy.
Zheng’s surrogacy used a legal loophole and was “definitely not innocent”, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China said on Wednesday.
“Surrogacy is banned in China as it uses women’s uteruses as a tool and sells life as a commercial product,” the commission’s post on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, said. “As a Chinese citizen, the act of travelling to the US on a legal loophole is not abiding the law.”
The Straits Times
Chinese actress Zheng Shuang loses fans and endorsement deals over surrogacy scandal
Zheng Shuang implied that her former partner had ulterior motives and revealed that he had cheated on her in September 2019.PHOTO: AFP
https://str.sg/JzK2
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