Fan Bingbing Is Now Out Of Jail
We have news on where China’s highest-paid actress, Fan Bingbing, has been hiding out the last few months. And, mama, it’s something.
Fan Bingbing is facing over $100 million in fines and backtax payments from the Chinese government for pulling a scheme to avoid paying taxes on her very fat paychecks. Fan had previously been missing from public life and her social media accounts for quite some time, and it was rumored she was banned from acting. Well, now we know where Fan was the entire time and it wasn’t the Chateau Marmont.
South China Morning Post (via Page Six) is reporting that China’s most glamorous tax evader is back in Beijing after being held for “an unspecified period” in “residential detention.” The unspecified part sounds kind of horrifying, but residential detention doesn’t sound that bad. I’m in a self-imposed residential detention. Fan was being held at a “holiday resort” near Wuxi in Jiangsu. She was there for what Chinese authorities call “residential surveillance at a designated location”.
This may sound super glamorous, but Fan wasn’t exactly lounging by a pool in a black and white striped bikini while drinking Mai Tais. Residential surveillance is:
“a form of detention introduced into criminal law in 2012 that lets police detain anyone suspected of endangering state security, terrorism or significant corruption at an undisclosed location for up to six months.”
Human rights groups apparently widely condemned the practice, and there have been reports that torture goes down in them. Real torture, not just being forced to watch Keeping Up Capitalist Corruption With the Kardashians marathons.
Fan already admitted in the apology she posted that she did engage in tax schemes and is ashamed about it all. Here’s a tiny piece of her apology:
I completely accept the penalties given by the taxation authorities after their thorough investigation. I totally accepted all of them, and will raise funds to pay my taxes and penalties regardless of any obstacles.
So, let’s see, Fan was imprisoned in a residential detention center that has been known to throw down some torture techniques on their detainees and then she releases a long statement admitting everything. Yeah, again, I don’t think she wrote that statement on fine parchment paper in the jail resort’s luxurious restaurant in between nibbling on some gourmet cuisine prepared by a Michelin-starred chef.
Pic: Wenn.com.