Zheng Shuang Photo:VCG

Chinese actress Zheng Shuang who was being involved into a surrogacy dispute scandal is once again under the spotlight on Chinese social media after her husband alleged Zheng’s controversial behaviors including tax evasion for her super high remuneration for a television role -160 million yuan ($ 24.62 million) and abandoning her sick pet dog.
 
Many Chinese netizens strongly condemned Zheng discarded her pet dog, calling her “inhumane.”According to text message records that Zheng’s husband Zhang Heng posted on his Sina Weibo account on Monday afternoon, Zheng wrote that she did not want to spend money to cure her sick teddy dog, so she discarded the dog in a shoes box.
 
The extent of her compensation for an acting role has also shocked many Chinese netizens, and they calculated that Zheng’s daily salary at 2.08 million yuan per day (shooting for 77 days). Hashtag that “daily paid reaching 2.08 million yuan” has earned 500 million views on Tuesday.
 
“What is the concept of 160 million yuan? China’s most advanced high speed train Fuxing is sold at 170 million yuan. Ordinary employees with a monthly salary of 6000 yuan need to work continuously for 2,222 years (probably from the Qin Dynasty (221BC–206BC)), and they cannot spend this money on living expenses only then can earn the 160 million yuan,” one netizen commended on Weibo.
 
“I have heard that the star pay is inflated, but I didn’t expect it to be so ridiculously high! And she still wants to evade tax! She destroyed my way of seeing the world. The scandal around her surrogacy and animal cruelty has not yet passed, and now she got more. I think her chance of turning over to re-become an actress is almost zero,” another netizen said.
 
According to the chat records, a production company offered 150 million yuan to Zheng, but Zheng planned to raise the pay to 180 million yuan. They finally made the deal of 160 million yuan. Zheng’s mother tried to separate the salary to different accounts for tax evasion.
 
“The excessive salary of celebrities will lead to a serious imbalance of film and television shooting costs and reduce the quality of film and television works,” Xiao Fuqiu, a film critic based in Shanghai, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
 
“According to the newest regulation in 2019, the total remuneration of all actors shall not exceed 40 percent of total production costs, and the main actors shall not exceed 70 percent of the total remuneration,” Wu Xiaolin, a lawyer based in Shenzhen, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
 
“The governance of highly paid movie stars only confined to the internal regulation of entertainment industry associations. But this is not enough. It should be raised to the level of legal action,” Wu suggested and he added that the company could ask for compensation if the drama cannot be broadcasted due to Zheng’s recent scandals.