TVB Celebrity News

Eight time Best Actor winner Nick Cheung enjoys going on Weibo and sharing his thoughts on his film career as well as occasional tidbits about his personal life with his fans. Unfortunately, he recently encountered someone from mainland China with an ‘ulterior motive’ on Weibo who spent 4 months leaving various negative comments on his Weibo attacking him and his family. The ‘attacks’ actually started last year, but recently escalated to the point of being slanderous and excessive – some of the false comments that were left were personal attacks on Nick and his wife Esther Kwan, including ‘claims’ that Nick had sexually transmitted diseases, that Esther was unfaithful to him, and even going so far as to say that Nick was not the father of their daughter Brittany. At first, Nick did not plan on getting upset over these false accusations, however the last few days, the attacks have become threats, causing Nick to feel deeply that there is a need to make the matter public and possibly even take legal action.

According to reports, about a month ago, a female fan of Nick’s saw the horrific comments on Weibo and decided to leave comments in support of Nick – almost immediately, the ‘attacker’ left a message threatening the fan, hurling another false accusation that the fan had an adulterous affair with Nick and that’s why she was defending him. The ‘attacker’ even went a step further to locate the female fan’s home address and threatened to go to her home to ‘harass’ her.

In hopes of ending the issue and protecting her family, the female fan decided to publicly apologize on Weibo (though she didn’t do anything wrong), however the ‘attacker’ still would not let it go. This was upsetting to Nick because innocent people are being pulled into the situation, so he personally went to Shanghai (since the ‘attacker’ is from mainland China) to consult with a lawyer and get some legal advice. On his Weibo yesterday, Nick posted: “In this world, there are no free lunches; abusing someone for so long and not having to take responsibility for so long, it is time to pay the price!” – hinting that the ‘attacker’ will soon have to take responsibility for his/her actions.

Yesterday, our reporter (Oriental Daily) contacted Nick Cheung regarding the situation. He stated that if the female fan decides to call the police, he will personally fly to Shanghai to be a witness in court and give her any support he can: “This type of abuse toward innocent people is what upsets me the most, plus now, it’s gotten to the point where a fan’s safety is being threatened! I don’t care if the ‘attacker’ hates me, but don’t pull innocent people into it! I welcome the ‘attacker’ to come to Hong Kong anytime and if need be, we can arrange for a meeting through EEG.”

Nick also emphasized that he does not feel threatened and is not afraid that the ‘attacker’ may follow him or physically assault him: “I am completely in the right, so what is there to be afraid of? If I get scared of every little thing, how can I possibly live and work in this industry?” [They (those involved in the verbal attacks) refer to your wife as a ‘goddess’?] “My wife does have a group of fans in the mainland and when they came to HK, I’ve met them all – they are very polite and good-mannered people, so most likely not them.” [How does your wife feel about all this?] “She was a little unhappy at first, but I didn’t want her to worry about the situation anymore – after all, my wife and daughter should not be pulled into this.”

In the end, Nick sighed and lamented the state of society today: “Actually, in recent years, I’ve done a lot of charity work related to kids who drop out of school – I really don’t understand why some kids have the opportunity to attend school and instead of spending their time working hard in their studies, they go around doing things that hurt other people! Aren’t they ashamed of facing their parents?”

Last year, when the verbal attacks started, Nick did not want to cause an on-line feud, so at one point, had erased all of the posts on his Weibo and even stopped going on Weibo completely for 2 months. However, the situation seemed to have gotten worse rather than better – it’s no wonder that Nick is deciding on possibly closing his Weibo account: “The cyber world is very frightening because people can make all sorts of statements and not take any ownership whatsoever…right now, I’m really thinking that it’s necessary to close my Weibo account.”