Chinese actress Zheng Shuang’s face to be digitally replaced in drama series

Popular Chinese actress Zheng Shuang is still dealing with fallouts from her surrogacy scandal at the start of the year. Not only was she dropped as a brand ambassador for luxury label Prada almost immediately, now it seems she may also be digitally removed from a drama series.

According to entertainment portal JayneStars, which cited Hong Kong news portal HK01, Zheng’s face in the upcoming drama A Chinese Ghost Story will be digitally replaced with that of actress Peng Xiaoran. This is in the hopes that the series can be approved for release.

It appears it’s not the first time such measures have been taken. JayneStars also reported that Zheng’s face was blurred out in a brief scene in Dt. Appledog's Time.

Zheng was said to have been paid 160 million yuan (S$33 million) for her role in Ghost Story and now that the production is losing money, investors want to take legal action to recover their money.

Zheng’s ex-boyfriend Zhang Heng accused the 29-year-old actress of abandoning their two children born to US-based surrogate mothers after the couple split up. He said she abandoned them before they were born.

Audio recordings surfaced of Zheng, Zhang and their parents discussing what to do with the unborn children. Zheng was heard expressing annoyance that the children couldn’t be aborted because the surrogate mothers were seven months pregnant at the time. 

Soon after the scandal broke, China released a new list of moral guidelines for actors and other performers. They face a permanent ban if they fail to comply. Performers who break the rules will only be allowed to work again after obtaining the approval of an ethics unit.

The actress still has two other dramas that have not aired: Secret Keepers and Jade Lovers.