Fan Bingbing Reportedly Earns More Money Through Live Stream Sales Than Filming Movies

Once you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way is up… Or so we thought.

As we all know, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing fell from grace after her high-profile tax evasion scandal in 2018.

Back then, the 38-year-old vanished from the public eye for a good four months and was eventually ordered to pay off a staggering 883mil yuan (S$176mil) in overdue taxes and fines. She has kept a relatively low-profile since, only starting to make a comeback in the later months of 2019.

Although it's been rumoured that Bingbing has been banned from Chinese TV and from taking up any acting projects in China for the time being, she has reportedly found a way to make money: By selling her beauty products on e-commerce websites.

The model-actress has been seen hawking her face masks from her beauty line, Fan Beauty, on Chinese social shopping platform, Little Red Book.

In fact, Bingbing has been such a successful saleswoman, she once managed to rack up 10mil yuan (S$2mil) in sales from selling 110,000 face masks in just four minutes. According to reports, through her live stream auctions, the actress now earns more than 5mil yuan (S$1mil) per hour, which is reportedly a lot more than her hourly wage when she was filming movies.

But just as we thought things were looking up for Bingbing again, rumour has it that China will be tightening their broadcast regulations (again) and that the government is planning to restrict the sales of goods online by banning live streaming. Uh-oh.

However, there might still be another source of income for Bingbing.

After Bingbing was exposed for dodging her taxes, the actress has been the subject of numerous rumours online. Tired of being the target of malicious netizens, Bingbing and her legal team decided to file lawsuits against a number of them for defamation.

Recently, Beijing Xingquan Law Firm, which represents Bingbing, announced that not only did Bingbing win her second lawsuit, she was also awarded 10 times the monetary compensation she was given during the first lawsuit.

It is said that the netizen was ordered to compensate Bingbing 20,000 yuan (S$4,000) for the mental distress she suffered, as well as to publish a public apology on the website he had used to defame Bingbing for three days.

The amount may not be as much as what Bingbing’s making from her live streams... But hey, every cent counts in such uncertain times right?

Photos: PBE Media