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Did Love O2O star Zheng Shuang give birth to a baby with wanted Chinese tycoon after surrogacy controversy?

Did Love O2O star Zheng Shuang give birth to a baby with wanted Chinese tycoon after surrogacy controversy?

Indian Express18-05-2025
Popular Chinese actor Zheng Shuang, who became a household name with the hit drama Love O2O opposite Yang Yang, has reportedly welcomed a baby with a Chinese billionaire, according to a report from Chinese news site 163.com, quoting unnamed industry insiders. Zheng's career derailed in early 2021 after she got embroiled in a series of controversies ranging from tax evasion to surrogacy abandonment and fraud, following which the Chinese government banned her popular shows from streaming in the country. The report comes just days after Zheng was seen crying during livestreams, denying rumours and viral claims that she had become a rich man's 'mistress or surrogate.'
Also read: Hidden Love's Sang siblings Zhao Lusi and Victor Ma reunite in a new Chinese show with a twist
The insiders who spoke to the website alleged that the actor had secretly given birth in the US, after which she was also rewarded with a luxurious villa and a limited-edition car by Ye Dianwei, a wealthy businessman who just happens to be on China's most-wanted list. The child's gender is still unknown, and there's no hard proof yet, but the rumour has already taken over the internet. Back in March, following her livestream, netizens demanded Zheng prove herself, asking her to stand up and show her full body to prove she wasn't pregnant. She refused and then, reportedly, on March 12, disappeared from the public eye, which only made the situation worse for her.
Also read: Hidden Love star Zhao Lusi admits 'memory loss' from medication on new show: 'I can't film dramas now'
Days later, Fuerdai, a popular TikToker who claims to be Ye Dianwei's son, made a startling claim on social media accusing his notorious father of cheating on his mother with Zheng, and said that his dad sent tens of millions of yuan to support the actor, who is keeping low-key in the United States. He even went as far as to claim that Zheng lives in a villa where his father has other kids as well. Ye Dianwei, according to reports, has been warned by the Chinese government and would be arrested immediately if he sets foot in the country. Industry insiders claim the Swords of Legends star started dating him in 2024 after struggling financially because of lack of work after she was blacklisted in China, and her debts in the US were piling up fast.
Zheng's career was at its peak after she starred in globally popular shows like Love O2O, Swords of Legends, Meteor Shower, Hi Venus, and more. Later, Netflix bagged the rights to a few of her C-dramas, which skyrocketed the actor to global fame. However, in 2021, her career was suspended in China, and her shows were banned. Her reputation, jobs, and brand deals vanished overnight. Zheng was accused by her ex-boyfriend, Zhang Heng, of abandoning two surrogate babies in the United States. According to Zhang, he was left stranded in the US with the babies while the actor returned to China and provided photos and birth certificates to back his claim. A leaked phone recording, where Zheng's parents allegedly suggested giving the babies up for adoption, made the situation worse.
After she was blacklisted in China, Zheng moved to the U.S., where she reportedly owes more than 200 million RMB (~$27.8 million), according to KbiZoom. She's also been trying to sell her $21 million villa in the U.S. So far, neither Zheng Shuang nor Ye Dianwei has commented on these new claims.
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  • Time of India

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Jamie happens to do that too' - Krishna S (Courtesy Netflix) She continues, 'Adolescents straddle the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and a fundamental process of this developmental stage is that they emotionally move away from their parental figures to try to find themselves. With puberty's frustrations, emerging sexual desires, and confusing emotional tides, adolescence is a period of chaos that often makes adults anxious. When a parent is anxious, a child can sense it. So, they fear that their parents may not be able to handle their conflicts and mixed feelings. Instead of focusing on why children withhold information, we should consider how parents can foster spaces where children feel safe enough to express themselves while regulating their anxieties.' In the event of a lack of this support from parents, a child responds to a trigger impulsively. Jamie happens to do that too. However, there must be something deeper that led Jamie to resort to this course of action — the 'why' the series doesn't provide? 'Adolescence is a stage where young people struggle intensely to discover personal values that will shape their identity, purposes, and desires,' notes Krishna, underlining how 'children encounter and internalise toxic masculinity through multiple avenues. They learn by mimicking adults' behaviours. In India, the father figure typically embodies masculinity — the alpha, macho person who's disconnected from his feminine side. When children witness these gendered ways of being, they internalise ideas about manhood and ways of relating to women (and to their feminine side).' Other than the family, 'mainstream media glorifies toxic masculinity, further normalising these concepts', she submits. 'During adolescence, peer groups become crucial for interpreting the world. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many social interactions have moved online, exposing adolescents to an ocean of information — from manospheres to incel cultures. While adolescents are often very aware of the external political and sociocultural trends, they typically lack tools to process their feelings [and respond accordingly]. As seen in Adolescence, Jamie recognises Katie's bullying yet struggles to identify what feelings it evoked in him. He [couldn't] bear those mixed feelings inside of him, and acted it out through physical violence.' The burden men bear When young men like Jamie witness a mismatch between what they perceive themselves to be and what their perception is in communities like their classrooms, they get discomforted. Perhaps this is leads them to participate in incel subculture in particular. It becomes crucial, therefore, to reflect on the relationship between the vulnerable masculine figure and violence. Shannon Philip, assistant professor in the sociology of gender and sexuality at the University of Cambridge, noted that 'masculinity forces men to appear hard and tough, which they are not.' The author of Becoming Young Men in a New India: Masculinities, Gender Relations and Violence in the Postcolony (Cambridge University Press, 2022) continues, 'Men are as 'weak' and 'soft' as women are. But the pressure of masculinity is so strong that it is difficult for men to safely [express] their emotions or vulnerabilities. Men are forced to hide emotions and appear tough. This mismatch comes across in Adolescence, where the young boy (Jamie) is both a victim of gender and masculine demands on him [and someone who] commits an unforgivable violent act. So, this mismatch between the demands of masculinity and men's real emotional lives is a huge problem for all of us. It's a problem not only for men but also for their siblings, parents, other women and society at large, as we see in Adolescence. So, [what] we need to urgently address is masculinity, not men, per se. We have to allow men to be less masculine.' Inaccessible vocabulary Indian child-rights activist, Enakshi Ganguly, who co-founded HAQ: Centre for Child Rights in 1999, says, 'What struck me is the level of engagement of the middle class with the TV series, reminding me of the [rightful public outrage] during the Nirbhaya rape case. They're shaken up by Adolescence. Until now, on-screen depictions of most adolescents who were accused of a crime were caricaturists. They were always the 'other' — someone not belonging to a middle class parent. They weren't like Jamie. So, watching [Jamie], they are suddenly waking up to the reality that it can be their child, too.' 'What struck me is the level of engagement of the middle class with the TV series... They're shaken up by Adolescence ... watching [Jamie], they are suddenly waking up to the reality that it can be their child, too.' - Enakshi Ganguly. In the picure: Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller and Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller. (Courtesy Netflix) Ganguly continues, 'Almost all children are willy-nilly impacted by social media. Today, not giving your children a mobile device is almost like depriving them of their basic rights. Schools expect it, teachers expect it, and, of course, for children themselves, it's 'essential'. Online learning and working from home during COVID-19 normalised this to another level for both children and adults. But the parents and children using the same Internet don't share the same language. The former are often incapacitated to understand when their children talk about something concerning the online world. For example, when Adam [played by Amari Jayden Bacchus] in the series explains to his father [portrayed by Ashley Walters], who's an investigating officer too, everything about the kidney beans, dynamite, and purple emojis, etc., the latter found himself as clueless as I did because I never knew of this word 'incel', and I've been a child-rights activist for 25 years. Would you believe that?' Tech, hyper-sexualisation, and children In all these things, the role technology is playing in widening and complicating the gap of understanding between parents and children is crucial. For Philip, technology is both 'a good and bad thing'. They feel that 'it has allowed young people to experiment with their sexualities, identities and bodies, but it is also exposing them to many dangers and violence. I think technology per se is not the problem, it is our culture that does not allow children safe ways to express their gender and sexuality. This must change. If we can build a healthy social attitude towards sex, gender, masculinity and femininity, then young people will not be turning to technology for answers to the questions that they naturally have. So, rather than focusing on technology, we should focus on creating social and cultural change about sex and gender which younger generations desperately need.' Ganguly feels that Adolescence 'is raising a lot of questions about parenting. What is modern-day parenting in the age of the Internet look like? What does the right to privacy for children mean? The latter is spoken about too much, but the boundaries are blurring. The changing nature of adolescent behaviour — the increased hyper-sexualisation we see where children feel compelled to put themselves out as a sexually active person and [how their peers] judge them by their bodies, how they look, and their level of sexual engagement — is alarming. Then, there's this [masculine] expectation, as shown in the series, on the father's part to make his male child be 'man enough'. Interestingly, he also recognises that his child likes painting, too. But masculinity becomes a very contested space in the series because the mother, Manda [played by Christine Tremarco], who's a calming figure in the series, has also normalised anger issues by suffering through her marriage and parenthood. She is aware that Jamie has a similar aggressive attitude that his father, who appends all commands with the word 'love' as if it'll soften [everything else], has had always.' If there's anything parents who are deliberating on Adolescence are wondering is what to do to ensure that their children don't happen to tread the same path that Jamie does. But parenting is not finding a cookie-cutter solution. It's more or less taking stock of the situation, noticing patterns and acting accordingly. When parents are faced with a situation that Manda and Eddie in the series find themselves in, the Internet gets touted as the root cause of all problems. The anxiety in parents around the growing, incomprehensible Internet-related vocabularies, often compels them to ban its access to the children, as seen in several Indian households. Krishna finds this counterproductive. 'Men are forced to hide emotions and appear tough. This mismatch comes across in Adolescence , where the young boy (Jamie) is both a victim of gender and masculine demands on him [and someone who] commits an unforgivable violent act' - Shannon Philip, author of Becoming Young Men in a New India: Masculinities, Gender Relations and Violence in the Postcolony (Courtesy Netflix) 'This is a reactionary response that undercuts the complexity of the problem. Adolescents' lives [today] are intertwined with the Internet, from schoolwork to socialising. Banning access may alienate them from social groups or prompt secretive behaviour. Proactive regulation of access with joint agreements about digital use might be more effective. While a parent [can't] monitor every minute of their child's life, parental engagement becomes critical to offer an active presence and a safe space for children to explore their confusions, understandings, and feelings. The TV series' imagery of open-and-shut doors is quite poignant. Jamie's parents were unaware of the bullying and his radicalisation until the cops battered their door down. In the final episode, they open the door to his room and life. As they reckon with the events, they realise their assumption of his safety at home led them to disengage from him despite noticing that he was isolating in his room, or that he was coming home upset. They were not 'bad parents', but by letting the door remain shut, they also emotionally shut themselves off from Jamie', she submits. Saurabh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer and freelance journalist. They can be found on Instagram/X: @writerly_life.

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