Selina Jen (任家萱), recovering from severe burns suffered in an explosion at a film shoot in Shanghai last year, should now be enjoying one of the best times of her life. At the beginning of the month, the S.H.E singer and actress finally tied the knot with 39-year-old lawyer Richard Chang (張承中).
But the couple’s marital bliss has been dampened by bitter online comments from devoted fans of Yu Haoming (俞灝明), the Chinese actor who co-starred in the production in which Jen was injured. Yu also suffered severe burns in the accident and is undergoing an arduous process of rehabilitation.
The hullabaloo started on Monday when Jen posted a message on Yu’s Weibo (微博, China’s version of Twitter) page to wish him a happy birthday. The message prompted one fan to write bitterly: “If it weren’t for Haoming, would you have become this [fortunate] today?”
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
When asked for comment, Chang, originally a media-shy figure who has emerged as Jen’s de facto spokesman during her recovery, said “[We] won’t respond.” The vitriol continued to be posted on Yu’s Weibo page by disgruntled fans, who accused Chang and Jen of being ungrateful.
Yu’s rabid fans have a chip on their shoulder as he was touted as a hero in the wake of the accident. It was widely reported that when the fateful explosion occurred during the taping of the TV drama I Have a Date With Spring (我和春天有個約會), flames engulfed a spot where Jen and Yu were standing, and it was Yu who led her out of the fire.
But this just wasn’t true, according to “friends” of Jen and Chang cited in the Apple Daily. They said it was clear from accident footage that the fire had surrounded Yu and Jen within a split second, and that the two had been ushered into vans to be taken to the hospital.
Still, Yu displayed an act of gallantry during the accident that Chang has publicly thanked him for. Yu and Jen were refused treatment at the first hospital they went to, so an ambulance for another hospital was called. But when it arrived, there was only one stretcher. When Yu saw that Jen had serious burns on her legs (which were made worse because she was wearing silk stockings) and couldn’t stand, he insisted that she take the stretcher so she could lay down.
Chang said he would remain silent about the online flare-up, so as not to create “opposition and hostility” between fans of Jen and Yu, Apple reported.
But gossip isn’t all the Apple Daily has been publishing lately.
Taiwanese pop music labels are notoriously untrustworthy when it comes to posting accurate record sales numbers. For better or for worse, Apple has put out its own list of the year’s best-selling albums to date.
After sending its sleuths to gather stats from the business departments of the major labels, the newspaper has crowned Show Luo (羅志祥, also known as Alan Luo) as the “King of Sales,” as his recent album Only for You (獨一無二) has reportedly sold 150,000 copies.
Luo clearly came out on top — the No. 2 seller was Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿), who sold just half that amount of her album It’s Time (是時候). Aaron Yan (炎亞綸) was third, having sold 68,000 copies of The Next Me (下一個炎亞綸) and Hebe Tien (田馥甄) came in fourth, having sold 48,000 copies of My Love.
Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹, aka A-mei, 阿妹) rounded off the list as the No. 5 best seller for R U Watching (你在看我嗎), which has sold 45,000 copies. But A-mei probably has other things on her mind, like fending off rumors about her latest rumored love interest, Harlem Yu (庾澄慶).
According to the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper), A-mei laughed off questions about whether she spent time with Yu after the two shared the stage at a performance last week in Kaohsiung.
“I didn’t even know where his dressing room was,” said the singer, who “begged” reporters to stop talking about the two of them.
At least we know Wang Lee-hom (王力宏), a rumored old flame of A-mei’s, is out of the picture. Next Magazine (壹週刊) reports that Wang is after another empress, Golden Horse-winning actress Shu Qi (舒淇).
According to Next’s latest issue, Wang had been planning to declare his love to Shu at a concert scheduled for the end of this month. His plan was to spill the beans with a video for his song The First Dawn (第一個清晨), in which Shu and Wang play the role of lovers.
According to Next, the scheme was nixed by Wang’s mother, who is attending the concert and disapproves of Shu, a former starlet in the softcore porn industry.
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