Three Chinese companies yesterday canceled their partnerships with Taiwanese-American singer-songwriter Wang Leehom (王力宏) after his wife, Lee Jing-lei (李靚蕾), on Friday accused him of having extramarital affairs.
On Wednesday, Wang wrote on Facebook that he and his wife of eight years had filed for divorce.
“We have different ideas and plans for our future, so we decided to separate. Although we have filed for divorce, we will always be family,” Wang wrote. “I regret not doing enough in our marriage these past few years.”
Photo: Wang Wen-lin, Taipei Times
Lee in a lengthy social media post said Wang had been openly having affairs and sex with prostitutes, adding that he had pressured her into accepting a divorce to protect the reputations of the women he was seeing.
Lee also said that members of Wang’s family had emotionally abused her.
Automaker Infiniti’s China subsidiary yesterday said in a statement that it was, “effective immediately, terminating its partnership with Wang.”
Photo: Sean Chao, Taipei Times
The move came just one day after Infiniti said Wang would act as its brand ambassador.
Electronics company Dushulang also said it would terminate its contract with Wang.
Chow Tai Seng Jewelry said that its contract with Wang ended on Nov. 30, and that it would not consider renewing the partnership.
In her post, Lee, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia universities, said Wang pressured her into a life where she eventually chose to give up her career.
She said that when they first met, Wang, then 26, had pursued her even though she was 16 and Lee was in a relationship with another woman.
Wang yesterday arrived in Taiwan from Beijing and did not comment on the accusations before entering mandatory quarantine.
Wang, 45, and Lee were married in the US in November 2013. They have three children.
Wang’s career started when he released his first Mandopop album in Taiwan in 1995. He has since released 15 albums, written and produced songs for others, and acted in several movies.
Wang has won four Golden Melody Awards — Taiwan’s top music awards — two for Best Singer and two for Best Album Producer.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,