Taiwan’s paparazzi outdid themselves this week by portraying actress Annie Yi (伊能靜) as a partying harlot who doesn’t want anything to do with her husband, Harlem Yu (庾澄慶), and their son, Harry (哈利), after the Liberty Times (自由時報) (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) and Next Magazine (壹週刊) published photos of the singer and movie star walking hand-in-hand with fellow Taiwanese actor Laurence Huang (黃維德).
Rumors of the former soap stars’ affair have been doing the rounds for a while, even before they both moved to Beijing to pursue acting careers in China. Reports claim that the two once lived in the same apartment building and currently have flats in the same complex.
The incriminating snaps, which clearly show the two holding hands while crossing a Beijing street, seem to put the matter to bed, as it were. When asked for comment, Yu denied that he and his wife were separating.
The images, incidentally, eclipse earlier rumors that Yi was involved with Liu Tao (劉韜), the former owner of a talent agency, which emerged when the pair were photographed eating dinner together and singing at a KTV. Liu’s associates promptly stopped tongues wagging by revealing he bats for the other team.
With so much rumor and innuendo surrounding Yi, perhaps Yu should have listened to his mother, who reportedly advised him against marrying the actress.
Yu’s mother — who, in the picture published in Next, bears a striking resemblance to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il — has also complained that she is now the primary female caregiver for Harry.
Fortunetellers couldn’t help but weigh in on the whole affair. After studying Huang’s nose, the geomancers determined that he must be good in bed. That’s right, in Taiwan its not big hands or big feet, but a sharp nose that reveals sexual prowess.
The subtext of the whole “scandal,” it seems to Pop Stop’s feminist take, is this: Men, you may leave your family back in Taiwan and have a second wife (or girlfriend) and live it up in China, but Yi is blazing new ground and proving that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Although nothing compared to Vivi Wang’s (王婉霏) infamous “black forest incident” or Liu Zhen’s (劉真) nipple slip, punters got more than their fare share of skin this week when Shatina Chen (陳思璇) showed off a considerable amount of her leggy assets. The former “queen of the catwalk” had been laying low since she was caught last year in a late-night rendezvous with a married man on Yanmingshan. She returned to the spotlight this week in high style after performing a sexy number at a press conference during which she wore a skimpy black skirt that provided a clear view of her white knickers. Is there nothing models won’t expose for a little exposure?
If gossip rags are to be believed, Chen’s long legs were alluring enough to enrapture David Tao (陶吉吉), who sweated through her performance and drooled over her afterwards — an amazing feat, really, because Tao is notorious for pursuing sweet young thangs.
Yesterday’s United Evening News reported the suicide of Ivy Li (黎礎寧), runner-up in the talent show One Million Star’s (超級星光大道) third series.
Li reportedly took her own life by burning charcoal in her car in Taichung City.
It starts out as a heartwarming clip. A young girl, clearly delighted to be in Tokyo, beams as she makes a peace sign to the camera. Seconds later, she is shoved to the ground from behind by a woman wearing a surgical mask. The assailant doesn’t skip a beat, striding out of shot of the clip filmed by the girl’s mother. This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko — “bumping man” — shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender
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