Asia
Brands rush to cut ties with Kris Wu amid scandal
The Chinese-Canadian rapper has been accused of raping underage girls
On Saturday, July 17, 19-year-old college student Du Meizhu, alleged that Kris Wu enjoyed luring underage teenage girls to his house to have sex with them. Du said she went to Wu’s house, was given alcohol, blacked out, and woke up in his bed. She alleged that she knew nine other girls who had the same thing happen to them and two of them were underage.
As soon as these reports hit the news, Kris Wu’s sponsors started to cut ties with him. Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Porsche, Lancôme, Tencent Video, Tempo, Master Kong, and others soon jumped off the Kris Wu bandwagon as the scandal became the number one trending topic on Weibo.
On Monday morning, Wu broke his silence and denied the allegations. "I have never cheated, there are no 'underaged girls' or anything like that. If I did such things, I would put myself in jail!" Wu said.
Du got interviewed by NetEase and claimed that Wu recruited girls from his fan clubs and would pressure them into sex. She also reported that she was paid over US$75,000 in hush money, but she would return it. Du has demanded that Wu retire from the entertainment industry, get out of China, and issue each woman a letter of apology.
While the allegations haven’t been proven to be true yet, many people were taking screenshots of their chat histories with Wu, showing that he’s not squeaky clean like his image. Chinese internet users even made a hashtag, #GirlsHelpGirls, after more women accused him of sexual misconduct.