Li Chen, also known as Jerry Li, is standing by his fiancée. The 39-year-old Chinese actor has finally broken his silence three months after fiancée Fan Bingbing went missing in action following her tax evasion scandal.
On Oct. 5, Friday, Li Chen has finally returned to social media after a long hiatus. He updated his Weibo account's status with a post: "No matter how difficult it may be, we will get through this together."
The one-line message has garnered over a million likes and reactions and been retweeted over 300,000 times. Fans, then, speculated that the post was directed towards Fan Bingbing, who suddenly disappeared from the public eye after tax evasion allegations surfaced.
Fan Bingbing, who is arguably the most famous actress in China, was last seen in public in early July wherein she visited a children's hospital. Since then, her whereabouts remain unknown.
Soon afterward, Fan Bingbing was accused of having dual contracts dubbed as "yin and yang" contracts. Through the said yin and yang contract, she declared her movie earnings to the tax authorities as substantially less than they were in reality.
After a thorough investigation, Fan Bingbing was, then, ordered by the Chinese authorities to pay around 883 million yuan ($129 million) in taxes, fines, and penalties and must be settled immediately to avoid criminal prosecution. After an initial denial of the tax evasion claims, the 37-year-old actress and model posted an open apology to her fans on her Weibo account.
"I feel ashamed and guilty for what I did, and here, I offer my sincere apology to everyone," Fan Bingbing wrote, according to a translation by Cosmopolitan. "For a long period of time, I did not uphold the responsibility of safeguarding the interests of my country and our society against my personal interests. I feel ashamed that I committed tax evasion in 'Unbreakable Spirit' and other projects by taking advantage of 'split contracts.'"
Fan Bingbing, who also starred in 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" as Blink, added: "I shouldn't have lost my ability to govern myself in the face of economic interests, leading myself to break the law. Here I sincerely apologise to society, friends who care about me, the public and the taxation authorities."
Due to the tax evasion scandal, Li Chen and Fan Bingbing reportedly postponed their wedding to a later date. The two planned to hold their wedding last September in a European castle, according to a report by On CC (via Yahoo!).
