The 44th Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎) have come and gone and as is typical for an awards show in Taiwan, it was mired in controversy.
More on that in a moment. First up is this week’s edition of Next Magazine, which outdid itself with a three-page expose about actor and director Ming Jin-cheng (明金城) and his self-proclaimed girlfriend Hsiao-ting (小婷), which included a headline that roughly translates as “14 shags in 3 days” (3天14炮).
Pop Stop speculates that Hsiao-ting’s real name was left out to, er, protect her privacy, which is odd, considering the details she revealed.
She told Next that what was initially a fairy-tale relationship began three years ago with a brief encounter at Room 18, a popular Taipei nightclub. Two years later Ming, 41, found Hsiao-ting, 25, on the Internet and in April they began dating.
So far, so good. Hsiao-ting told the gossip rag that Ming was at first the picture of gentlemanly behavior. He would send her sweet messages telling her that she was “a gift from the gods” and that he wanted to take care of her.
But after hooking up, things took a turn to the dark side. Hsiao-ting told Next that Ming’s sexual practices increasingly tended towards the deviant. She alleges that he would place his lightsaber pretty much anywhere it could go without wearing a safety jacket and that he often videotaped their sexual encounters.
She then went on to describe in graphic detail how Ming brought said encounters to a climax. Pop Stop will spare readers the juicy details.
Next, always to be counted on when it comes to putting a person’s peccadilloes into context, offered a useful sidebar of celebrities who have been caught with their pants down, including disgraced Hong Kong actor Edison Chen (陳冠希) and Taiwanese pop idol Ethan Ruan (阮經天).
But it seems Ming’s sexploits weren’t the worst of it.
When the couple first started dating, Ming told Hsiao-ting that he would be there for her if she became pregnant. Without the use of a condom, she predictably became pregnant last month, a topic that Ming largely managed to avoid, along with Hsiao-ting, for the next few weeks.
Hsiao-ting decided to take matters into her own hands and went to the wayward Ming’s apartment. But instead of Ming answering the front door, a young woman surnamed Cheng (鄭) appeared.
When Hsiao-ting told her why she was there, Cheng told Hsiao-ting that she had just had an abortion two weeks previously. The father was allegedly Ming.
Meanwhile, Hsiao-ting said that Ming’s friends have tried to convince her to have an abortion, with one going so far as to offer her NT$150,000 for the procedure.
And where was Ming through all of this? Reportedly he’s been in the hospital for the past two weeks suffering from a bout of depression. The saga will inevitably continue to play out over the next few weeks.
Moving right along, funnyman Hu Gua (胡瓜) finally won the award for best variety show host at this year’s Golden Bell Awards, Taiwan’s version of the Emmys.
The television celebrity has worked in the entertainment industry for almost 30 years and has been nominated 13 times.
Hu Gua’s ecstatic reaction to his award was in marked contrast to that of Mark Chao (趙又廷), who starting bawling after accepting the Best Actor award.
The newbie took the gong for his role in the popular police drama Black & White (痞子英雄), beating out audience favorite and former F4 member Vic Chou (周渝民), who also stars in the same show and goes by the name Tsai Tsai (仔仔).
Chao’s win had audience members and the media in an uproar. They claimed that the reason why he took top honors was because of backroom dealings by his influential father, Allen Chao (趙樹海), reported Apple, the United Daily News and the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
The elder Chao didn’t lessen suspicions when he awkwardly tried to coax Tsai Tsai to share the limelight with his son. Tsai Tsai just looked uncomfortable.
The China Times also reported that the names of the Best Actor and Best Actress winners were leaked to the media before the ceremony, further evidence for many that much of the event is a charade.
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