Icon: enlarge
Actress Zheng at a Prada event: "Very sad and private matter"
Photo: ChinaImages / ZUMA Press / imago images
Zheng Shuang is one of the most famous actresses in China.
But now the 29-year-old has fallen out of favor in her home country, her career is at stake.
The background is a scandal about two children that the actress is said to have had from surrogate mothers in the USA.
According to Reuters news agency, Zheng's former partner, Zhang Heng, accuses her of abandoning the two children.
According to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, the father is currently looking after “two young, innocent lives” in the USA.
Zhang did not write anything about a surrogacy.
Suspected birth certificates circulating on the Internet named Zheng as a mother.
The affair is attracting a lot of attention in China, with more than 600 million people following the controversy, according to Reuters on Weibo, accusing Zheng of being irresponsible and vicious.
For the actress, the matter may also be legally sensitive - surrogacy is prohibited in China.
Surrogacy abroad has long been widespread among wealthy Chinese couples.
China's Communist Party is apparently now also looking into the case.
According to the FAZ, the Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs announced that Zheng was "definitely not innocent."
Luxury chain Prada terminates contract
The case has already had the first consequences for the actress: the luxury brand Prada bowed to public pressure on Wednesday and terminated a newly concluded cooperation with Zheng after just a few days.
As Reuters reports, citing a Chinese communication scientist, the scandal is extremely damaging to the image of the luxury brand in China.
According to the news agency, foreign companies have recently come under increasing pressure.
Zheng herself recently only announced on Weibo that she had not violated any laws in the USA or China.
"This is a very sad and private thing for me," she wrote.
Icon: The mirror
fek / Reuters