Tattletale flames old and “new” have been spewing up grist for the rumor mill over the past week.
Pop idol-turned-B-list actor Wing Fan (范植偉) climbed into bed with the China Times Weekly (時報周刊) for a pillow talk session, the results of which were published two weeks ago, and got more than he bargained for — or maybe not.
Fan reminisced about his past romance with pop idol Cyndi Wang (王心凌), which ended five years ago, and gave her dirty laundry a thorough public airing.
With unusual candor, Fan confessed to subjecting Wang to domestic violence on two occasions. And if that weren’t enough to persuade his most ardent of fans that the man’s a complete cad, when the interviewing journo asked if the two had lost their virginity to one another, seeing as they married young (Fan was 19, Wang 17), Fan replied: “I had two girlfriends before her so it was not my first time. I thought it would be her first time, but it wasn’t. I was a bit disappointed and surprised, because after all she was only 17.”
Wang, acknowledged as the founder of Mando-pop’s Cult of Sweetness (甜心教主), reportedly cried for two days and went into hiding.
In the face of snowballing criticism, Fan cut off contact with the media. But before making a French exit, he publicly apologized to Wang and said that he was gravely mistaken in trusting a reporter during a “casual chat.”
Far be it from Pop Stop to suggest that, with a new album coming out, Fan’s disclosure could be yet another Mando-pop attempt at creating a succes de scandale.
Amid the brouhaha, Wang’s first love, C-list actor Ou Ting-hsing (歐定興), reaped some media exposure. When interviewed by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), Ou said he had only got to first base with Wang when they dated. And since Wang started seeing her former husband after they broke up, Ou speculated that Wang lost her virginity to Fan.
Meanwhile, starlet Hu Jia-ai (胡嘉愛), who quickly rose from the D-list to gossip rag headline material because of her rumored romantic involvement with pop star Stanley Huang (黃立行) — though he dismissed her as a mere acquaintance — continues to fuel speculation about the pair’s true status.
After Hu claimed on popular television show Here Comes Kang and Xi (康熙來了) that she hangs out at Huang’s house watching movies and playing with his “bird” — not a euphemism, but a real one, apparently — Next Magazine recently published English-language text messages sent between Hu and a guy, alleged to be Huang, on March 1.
Judge for yourself:
Hu: Take shower already
Huang: Hehe Can I see?
Hu: No
Huang: Okok ... Can I touch?
Hu: Yes next time take shower with u haha
Huang: Don’t have too much dirty of a dream! save it for later haha
When asked about how the messages could have ended up in the media, Hu said she had lost her cellphone, rather conveniently, a few days previously.
As for whether or not the message sender is the star in question, Hu said she has many friends named Stanley.
The Nuremberg trials have inspired filmmakers before, from Stanley Kramer’s 1961 drama to the 2000 television miniseries with Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox. But for the latest take, Nuremberg, writer-director James Vanderbilt focuses on a lesser-known figure: The US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who after the war was assigned to supervise and evaluate captured Nazi leaders to ensure they were fit for trial (and also keep them alive). But his is a name that had been largely forgotten: He wasn’t even a character in the miniseries. Kelley, portrayed in the film by Rami Malek, was an ambitious sort who saw in
It’s always a pleasure to see something one has long advocated slowly become reality. The late August visit of a delegation to the Philippines led by Deputy Minister of Agriculture Huang Chao-ching (黃昭欽), Chair of Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) and US-Taiwan Business Council vice president, Lotta Danielsson, was yet another example of how the two nations are drawing closer together. The security threat from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), along with their complementary economies, is finally fostering growth in ties. Interestingly, officials from both sides often refer to a shared Austronesian heritage when arguing for
Among the Nazis who were prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials in 1945 and 1946 was Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Goring. Less widely known, though, is the involvement of the US psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who spent more than 80 hours interviewing and assessing Goring and 21 other Nazi officials prior to the trials. As described in Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Kelley was charmed by Goring but also haunted by his own conclusion that the Nazis’ atrocities were not specific to that time and place or to those people: they could in fact happen anywhere. He was ultimately
Last week gave us the droll little comedy of People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) consul general in Osaka posting a threat on X in response to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi saying to the Diet that a Chinese attack on Taiwan may be an “existential threat” to Japan. That would allow Japanese Self Defence Forces to respond militarily. The PRC representative then said that if a “filthy neck sticks itself in uninvited, we will cut it off without a moment’s hesitation. Are you prepared for that?” This was widely, and probably deliberately, construed as a threat to behead Takaichi, though it
RSS