Chinese movie star Fan Bingbing won seven days of apologies online and 161,500 yuan ($22,500) in a lawsuit against an internet user for spreading false rumors alleging Fan kept improper sexual relationships with several men.
A court in Beijing found the men guilty of hurting Fan’s reputation through posts from July 2018 to January 2019 implying she had affairs, according to a statement of Fan’s law firm released on Monday.
Fan was not explicitly named in the posts, but the user used insulting words and pictures of the actress for his 2.45 million followers on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo social media platform.
The “vicious contents seriously damaged the social evaluation of Fan,” read a statement released by the Beijing Xingquan Law Firm on its Weibo account.
It was Fan’s second lawsuit against the same user.
In June 2018, the user, whose name is reportedly Chen Yongpeng, was also ordered to apologize and pay compensation of 62,500 yuan for a series of similar fake rumors about Fan in 2017.
Fan, an A-list Chinese star, was fined 883 million yuan ($132 million) for tax evasion last year.
She will co-star with Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong’o in 355, an ensemble spy thriller of scheduled for release by Universal Pictures in January 2021.
