Beijing (AFP)
The luxury brand Prada has ended its cooperation with the popular Chinese actress Zheng Shuang who according to the Chinese press abandoned her two children born by gestation for surrogacy after breaking up with her partner.
Prada has "ended all cooperative relations" with the actress who appeared in the brand's Lunar New Year advertising campaign, the latter announced on Tuesday, without specifying why she had decided to part ways with his muse.
Zheng Shuang, known for her roles in historic television series, has been stigmatized on social media after Chinese media revealed that she left her boyfriend, abandoning him in the United States with their two children born to surrogate mothers .
The couple reportedly broke up before the babies were born due to the infidelity of the actress' companion, Zhang Heng.
Surrogacy is illegal in China, where the practice was banned in 2001, but affluent Chinese couples sometimes pay large sums to women abroad to bear children.
The ruling Communist Party said on Wednesday that the actress was "by no means innocent" and accused her of exploiting a legal loophole to finance surrogacy abroad.
Zheng said on Tuesday that this topic was "private and very sad."
His former partner Zhang said Monday on the Weibo social network that he had spent more than a year in the United States "to take care of two young innocent lives".
This case caused a scandal on social networks, some Internet users accusing the actress of being a "bad woman" while others attacked her former companion, held responsible for their breakup.
© 2021 AFP