Fan Bingbing

Fan Bingbing (Chinese: 范冰冰, born 16 September 1981) is a Chinese actress. After gaining recognition for the costume drama My Fair Princess (1998–1999), Fan's breakthrough came with Feng Xiaogang's blockbuster Cell Phone (2003), which won her the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. She followed with television series such as The Proud Twins (2004), Eight Heroes (2006), and The Empress of China (2014) while collaborating with Li Yu on art-house films such as Lost in Beijing (2007), Buddha Mountain (2011), and Double Xposure (2012). She reunited with Feng in I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016), which won her the Silver Shell for Best Actress and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress.
Her international credits include My Way (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Skiptrace (2016), and The 355 (2022). From 2013 to 2017, she was the highest-paid celebrity in the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list after ranking in the top 10 every year since 2006. She appeared on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in 2017.
In 2018, Fan was involved in a tax evasion scandal, resulting in a CN¥883 million (US$127 million) tax liability and fine, as well as her blacklisting in mainland China. She returned to acting with a cameo in South Korean TV show Insider (2022), followed by a starring role in Hong Kong film Green Night (2023).
Fan was born and raised in the coastal city of Yantai, Shandong. Her grandfather, Fan Jie, was a general in the naval air force, and her grandmother gave her the Chinese character bing, or “ice,” to honor the family’s ties to the sea. Fan grew up watching her father, Fan Tao, a pop singer, perform at regional competitions. Her mother, Zhang Chuanmei, was a dancer and an actress. Both were party committee members and served as cadres in the cultural division of the local port authority. Fan has a younger brother Fan Chengcheng, who was a member of boy group Nine Percent and NEXT.
In 1995, during her second year at high school, Fan was involved a car accident and spent three months recuperating in a hospital, where she watched the Taiwanese drama The Empress of the Dynasty, starring Angela Pan as Wu Zetian. The drama gave Fan the dream of becoming an actress. Unable to advance to her senior year due to the accident while unwilling to repeat the second year, Fan applied to a performance school, Shanghai Xie Jin-Hengtong School of Arts.
Fan debuted in the television series Powerful Woman (1997), where she met actress Leanne Liu, who recommended her for the television series My Fair Princess (1998–1999). The two seasons of costume drama, which had initially slated her for one of the major roles as Zi Wei but then assigned her for a supporting role as Zi Wei's handmaiden Jin Suo, became a runaway success and brought her recognition across the Chinese-speaking world. After wrapping up with the shooting of the first season of My Fair Princess in 1997, at the age of 16, Fan signed with Chiung Yao, the Taiwanese writier and showrunner of My Fair Princess, for 7 years. They broke up in 1999 due to contractual disputes. Fan and her mother filed for termination with the agency, which countersued Fan for unilaterally terminating the contract and demanded a compensation fee of CN¥1 million. Through court mediation, Fan settled the contract termination with the agency by paying CN¥200,000 in compensation. In the same year, she signed a three-year contract with Jia Yun, a Chinese entrepreneur who became her confidant and was later wanted for "illegally absorbing public deposits" in 2007. Jia turned himself in in 2015.
From 2001 to 2007, Fan signed with Huayi Brothers. In 2002, Fan established Huairou Fanbingbing Film & Television Art Training School and a production and publicity company, both in the charge of her mother. In 2003, Fan starred in Cell Phone, which became China's highest-grossing film of the year and earned her the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. Fan signed an eight-year contract with Chiung Yao's company, which produced My Fair Princess. However, as the company had yet to establish any branches in mainland China, many mainland Chinese television advertising firms had to make calls to Taiwan for negotiations, resulting in a waste of time and effort. When Fan and her mother tried to contract, Chiung Yao's company asked for CN¥1 million in compensation; eventually the court ordered Fan to pay CN¥200,000 because the contract was illegal due to her age.
Fan appeared in The Lion Roars (2002), The Twins Effect II (2004), A Chinese Tall Story (2005), and A Battle of Wits (2006). She received a nomination for Best Actress at the 12th Golden Bauhinia Awards for her role in the Chinese-South-Korean-Japanese epic film A Battle of Wits. In 2006, Forbes China awarded her the Star of the Year.
Fan left Huayi Brothers in February 2007 and started her own Fan Bingbing Studio. She starred in eight films in 2007, winning Best Supporting Actress at the 44th Golden Horse Awards for her role in The Matrimony. That year, her studio made its first television production, Rouge Snow (2008), adapted from the novel of the same name. Fan played the starring role in the production, portraying a poor girl who fights for freedom against fate after being sold to a wealthy and influential clan. In the same year, Fan starred in crime drama film Shinjuku Incident and was praised by critics for her performance. Fan featured in historical action film Bodyguards and Assassins, which earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards.
In 2010, Fan starred in Chen Kaige's historical epic, Sacrifice. On 24 October, Buddha Mountain starring Fan premiered at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival, and earned her the Best Actress Award. In April 2010, Fan was ranked first on the "50 Most Beautiful People in China" list by the newspaper Beijing News. In 2011, Fan starred in the martial arts film Shaolin alongside Andy Lau and Jackie Chan and The Founding of a Party, which was released to mark the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. In May, she appeared at the 64th Cannes Film Festival to promote My Way together with director Kang Je-gyu and actors Jang Dong-gun and Joe Odagiri. In October, she became a member of the International Competition Jury of 24th Tokyo International Film Festival.
For the first half of 2012, Fan attended many fashion shows in Paris. On 16 May, she attended the opening ceremony of the 65th Cannes Film Festival as the only East Asian global spokesperson on behalf of L'Oréal Paris. Forbes ranked Fan third on the 2012 Forbes China Celebrity 100 List based on her success in that year. In the film Double Xposure, which was released in China on 29 September, she portrays a girl who, after suffering trauma during childhood, experiences visual hallucinations after witnessing her father kill her mother. Most film critics praised Fan's performance, and she won Best Actress at the 2013 Huading Awards. The film was a financial success, with a domestic gross of more than CN¥100 million, which broke the box office record for a domestic art film in China. On 12 December, Fan appeared in Lost in Thailand, in which she did an unpaid cameo so as to "help" her first-time filmmaker friend, Xu Zheng. The film broke the box office record for Chinese films in China to become one of the highest-grossing Chinese films of all time.
In 2013, Fan appeared as Dr. Wu's assistant, Wu Jiaqi, in the mainland Chinese version of Iron Man 3, which was released on 1 May. The same year, she starred alongside Aarif Rahman in the romantic comedy One Night Surprise, which aired on Chinese Valentine's Day. The low-budget film became a commercial success and received positive reviews. On 9 December 2013, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's B2C business Taobao announced that Fan topped the list of the most valuable celebrities for boosting online business and said that Fan influenced approximately US$74 million in sales on its ecommerce website. On 22 December, Fan received the Best Actress Award and the Hottest Figure Award at the Baidu Hot Ceremony. In 2014, Fan portrayed the mutant Blink (Clarice Ferguson) in the American superhero film X-Men: Days of Future Past. She also announced that she has a four-film contract with 20th Century Fox, yet she has not appeared in another X-Men film since. The film was released globally and resulted in increased international fame and recognition for Fan. On 31 May, Barbie announced the launch of the Fan Bingbing Celebrity Specialty doll in Shanghai. Louis Vuitton also chose Fan as the first Asian actress to be provided with a specially tailored dress for their red carpet.
In the series The Empress of China, Fan portrays the titular character Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The 82-episode TV series was broadcast on Hunan Television from 21 December 2014 to 5 February 2015, and recorded the highest ratings for the year. The same year, she starred in wuxia fantasy film The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. In 2015, Fan joined the China Central Television (CCTV) variety show as a judge in Amazing Chinese and as a contestant in the reality television show Challenger's Alliance. Fan won the Best Actress award at the 1st Berlin Chinese Film Festival for her role in the film. She was ranked fourth on Forbes World's Highest-Paid Actresses list for 2015.
In 2016, Fan, along with her then partner Li Chen, was invited as the final guest on the popular Taiwanese talk show Kangxi Coming before its closure. She was featured in the action comedy Skiptrace alongside Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville, which won her Best Supporting Actress at the 1st Golden Screen Awards. Fan then starred in Guo Jingming's L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties. The all-star film, which was released on 30 September, is China's first computer-animated motion film, but performed poorly at the box office. Fan won the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the 64th San Sebastián International Film Festival and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress for her performance in I Am Not Madame Bovary, directed by Feng Xiaogang.
Fan was honored at the 2017 Time 100 Gala in Manhattan, recognized on Time magazine's list of the one-hundred most influential people of 2017. In April 2017, Fan was announced to serve as a jury member at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The same year, she starred in Sky Hunter, China's first aerial warfare film. She also starred in the 2017 French film The Lady in the Portrait (Le Portrait interdit), co-starring Melvil Poupaud. In June 2017, Fan was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Since 2018, Fan's career has been derailed by a tax evasion scandal. On May 10, 2018, Feng Xiaogang posted on Weibo a concept poster for Cell Phone 2, a sequel to Fan's breakout film Cell Phone (2003). On May 27, former CCTV host Cui Yongyuan, who had a feud with the original film due to its alleged insinuations about his real life, posted on Weibo photos of a contract showing that Fan was paid CN¥10 million. On May 28, Cui further alleged that another actor had signed two contracts for a four-day film shoot—one for CN¥10 million and the other for CN¥50 million—pocketing a total of CN¥60 million. Due to the smaller contract's amount matching Fan's revealed contract from the previous day, many incorrectly believed Cui referred to the same person with two days' revelations and was thus accusing Fan of tax evading through the dual contracts. On May 29, Fan's studio denied the accusation of tax evasion. On June 3, China's tax authorities announced that they would investigate Fan's suspected case of tax evasion in light of Cui's posts. Cui offered his help to the investigation, but clarified that the CN¥60 million contract did not involve Fan. He also apologized to Fan for subjecting her to the investigation, stating that his targets were Feng Xiaogang and Liu Zhenyun, the director and the writer of Cell Phone.
Questions, concerns, and rumors about Fan's whereabouts grew when she was not seen after a last public appearance on 1 July 2018, and a lack of activity on social media after 23 July. According to a later deleted Weibo post by Qiu Ziming, a former journalist for The Economic Observer, Fan was arrested while consulting a fortune-teller named Shen Aixu, who is known by the epithet “Little Immortal,” at Deji Plaza in Nanjing. The session, reportedly arranged by Wu Tiejun, the plaza’s owner, with Fan paying Shen CN¥2 million, was raided by the police, who detained Fan, Shen, and Wu on the spot. To maintain secrecy, they covered Fan’s head, escorted her from the elevator to the parking garage, and transported her to Beijing by police car. When Fan requested to use the restroom during the transfer, officers cleared the area to prevent exposure. In 2021, the WeChat official account “Defenders,” a society of defense lawyers, disclosed that Shen, the “Little Immortal” arrested alongside Fan, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In the first week of July 2018, Fan canceled a meeting with a production company, informing them that she had been placed under house arrest. In August, Fan's manager Jersey Chong refuted that Fan had been arrested. On October 3, Xinhua News Agency announced that Fan was ordered to pay about CN¥883 million in taxes and penalties for her tax evasion, while her long-time manager, Mu Xiaoguang (original name Mou Enguang), had been "subjected to compulsory measures by public security authorities" for destroying accounting records and obstructing the investigation. On the same day, Fan broke her months-long silence with an apology statement on social media. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council protested that the Chinese government had not informed the Taiwanese government of the arrest of Mu, a Taiwanese citizen, as required under the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement. Mu remained out of public view until March 2023, when he attended the funeral of his uncle, veteran actor Yun-Peng Shang, in Taipei. Although rumors have suggested that Mu served four years in prison to protect Fan by taking the blame, Chinese authorities have never disclosed whether he was sentenced following his arrest.
Fan's case triggered a tax audit crackdown and reforms in China's entertainment industry. In December 2018, a group of cultural and film industry representatives anonymously issued an open letter to Premier Li Keqiang, questioning the retroactive and punitive taxation methods of the State Taxation Administration. According to Xinhua News Agency, from October 2018 to the end of the year, taxpayers in the entertainment industry "conducted self-inspections," and CN¥11.747 billion in taxes were declared.
Since the tax scandal, Fan has been effectively blacklisted in mainland China, where her films and television works are prohibited from being released, such as the crime film The Perfect Blue, directed by Cao Baoping, and the historical drama The Legend of Ba Qing (aka Win the World). Fan made attempts at a comeback in China with varying degrees of success, with her publicity usually censored or shadowbanned on the Chinese internet. On April 22, 2019, she attended the iQIYI Ninth Anniversary Gala in Beijing, with photos posted on her Instagram the next day. This was her first public event after the tax scandal; however, by the time she arrived, the media session had already ended. Her closed-door session included only industry VIPs, with no journalists present. Fan was in attendance at the Shanghai Beauty Summit on 12 July and the 12th China Cosmetic Summit on 22 July. On 27 September, Fan posted on Weibo photos of her attending a promotional event for Hongqi E-HS9. However, she was conspicuously missing from the list of celebrity guests in the car company's publicity. She later deleted the post about Hongqi. On November 17, Fan presented an award at the "2020 Ellemen Film Hero Awards Ceremony" for the animated film Legend of Deification.
In the two years following her tax scandal until the end of 2020, Fan filed over 200 infringement lawsuits in China, the majority of which she won. Some defendants, after losing their cases, appealed for a second trial, claiming that as a scandal-hit public figure, her image no longer held commercial value. However, these appeals were also unsuccessful.
In April 2021, following Chinese actress Zheng Shuang’s tax scandal, a Weibo user posted in defense of Fan: “I hope the authorities will release the full list of those who contributed to the 11.7 billion yuan in back taxes after Fan Bingbing’s case. Don’t single someone out and crush them completely—publish the entire list and rectify the issue systemically. Stop using the salary cap policy as a smokescreen to fool the audience. I believe exorbitant pay is a systemic issue, and solving it would be truly commendable.” Fan liked the post in Weibo but later unliked it and posted: “This world has never been fair. When you feel something is unfair, you need to accept it as normal. When you feel something is fair, you should consider yourself lucky.”
Unlike many other convicted celebrities in China, after the tax scandal, Fan was allowed to maintain a social media presence, which she parlayed into a successful career running her personal brand, Fan Beauty. Founded not long before her tax scandal, Fan Beauty's GMV surpassed 300 million RMB in 2021, 850 million RMB in 2022, and 1.1 billion RMB in 2023.
In 2022, two Hollywood films starring her, The 355 and The King's Daughter, both had cast her before the tax scandal, were released. Her performances received negative notices and earned her a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. In the same year, Fan returned to acting with a cameo role in the South Korean TV series Insider (2022) and received the ACA Excellence Award at the Busan Film Festival's Asian Content Awards. In 2023, she starred in the Hong Kong-produced, South Korea-set independent film Green Night (2023), directed by Chinese director Han Shuai and premiered at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section. In September 2023, she served as a jury member at the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival. In October 2023, she received the Cinema Icon Award at the 34th Singapore International Film Festival. In November and December 2024, two of Fan‘s earlier films, Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) and Sacrifice (2010), were screened in two themed retrospective exhibitions across China, marking the first time her works were shown in the country since her tax scandal. In February 2025, Fan joined the competition jury at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, presided over by Todd Haynes.
Fan has been on the covers of Grazia (Korea, Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia, International), L'Officiel (Italy, India, Liechtenstein, Russia, Singapore), Vogue (Czechoslovakia, Singapore), Wonderland (China, UK), Marie Claire (Malaysia), Harper's Bazaar (Serbia), T (Singapore), Numéro (Netherlands), Schön! and more.
On 13 May 2010, Fan wore a "Dragon Robe" on the red carpet of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival. The dress, co-designed by Chinese designer Laurence Hsu and Fan herself, features two leaping dragons and crashing waves on the hem, in the bright yellow color that was exclusively used by emperors in ancient China. The dress was collected by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London on 12 March 2012. Laurence Hsu announced that the dress shown at the museum is a modified version of the original, which was bought by Madame Tussauds. On 11 May 2011, Fan wore a crane dress on the red carpet at the opening ceremony of the 64th Cannes Film Festival. On the red carpet of the opening ceremony of the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Fan wore an elegant pale strapless gown designed by her friend Christopher Bu, decorated with bright floral designs and stories about the Four Beauties of ancient China. Inspired by a porcelain vase, the ancient vibe of her dress was complemented by her hairstyle, which made her look like a young maiden in the Tang dynasty.
In recent years, Fan received various invitations from fashion brands such as Valentino, Giorgio Armani S.p.A., Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A., Atelier Versace, Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, to attend fashion shows in Paris, Beijing and Shanghai. On 3 July 2012, she closed the Stéphane Rolland's Haute Couture show in Paris, and was featured in the fashion show's finale. On July 31, 2012, she was ranked number nine on Vanity Fair's International Best Dressed list 2012. On 19 September, she was honoured with the Personal Style Award by Elle (USA Edition). On December 2, 2012, she became the Asian ambassador of Louis Vuitton "Epi Alma" series of handbags. On 5 December, she was awarded "The Most Beautiful Woman of the Year" by the magazine Esquire (China Edition).
In 2013, Fan became the first Asian celebrity ambassador for the Champagne House Moët & Chandon, and also the brand ambassador for Chopard. On May 18, 2013, she was honoured as the International Artist of the Year in Cannes by The Hollywood Reporter. Fan joined the opening ceremony of 2013 Cannes Film Festival premiere, wearing a custom Louis Vuitton gown, and that was the first time the French fashion house had created a gown especially for an Asian actress.
In April 2013, Fan became the Greater Chinese face of Louis Vuitton's "Chic on the bridge" advertising campaign, promoting the classic "Alma" handbag launched in 1934, shot by American fashion photographer Steven Klein. In December 2013, Fan starred as the global face of the Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2014 collection, which marked Marc Jacobs's final advertising campaign for the brand, featuring alongside Catherine Deneuve, Sofia Coppola, Gisele Bündchen, Caroline de Maigret and Edie Campbell. Fan was ranked on Vanity Fair's International Best Dressed list 2015 and 2016. Fan was named global ambassador of several brands such as ReFa Beauty Care Tools, De Beers, King Power, and Montblanc. In August 2020, French luxury beauty house Guerlain announced that Fan as the brand's global spokesperson.
On July 3, 2023, Fan closed the Georges Hobeika's Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2023 show at Paris Haute Couture Week. On October 2, 2023, Fan closed the closed out the catwalk for the Mugler's Spring/Summer 2024 womenswear show. In April 2024, Fan was invited as a special guest at the Songkran Festival in Thailand. On 27 May 2024, it was announced that Fan was appointed as Malacca's tourism ambassador, she toured the Malaysian state from 14 June till 16 June.
In 2001, Fan dated actor Han Qing after co-starring in the 2001 TV drama Luan Shi Piao Ping.
From 2004 to 2007, Fan dated actor Wang Xuebing after co-starring in the 2004 TV drama Jian Lin Tian Xia. Fan took a nine-month hiatus from acting for him.
In 2013, romantic rumors surfaced about Fan and Aarif Rahman after they filmed One Night Surprise. In August 2014, while working together again on The Empress of China, the TV series produced by Fan, the two were photographed sharing the same hotel room at night. Fan suggested on Kangsi Coming that they broke up around the end of 2014, while Rahman tacitly acknowledged on S-style Show with Dee Hsu that Fan and he had been in a relationship.
On 29 May 2015, it was announced on Li Chen's social media that he and Fan were dating. On 16 September 2017, they were engaged after he proposed to her at her birthday party. They announced their separation on 27 June 2019. Fan explained in 2020 that she left him to protect him from the fallout of her tax scandal, which had affected both Li's career and her brother Fan Chengcheng's.
In 2022, Fan began a relationship with Guo Yanfeng, a former PLA officer who served as vice chairman of Gaosheng Wealth Group, a Zhongzhi-affiliated firm, before becoming a business partner in her brand Fan Beauty. The two parted ways at the end of 2023.
In 2024, Fan moved to Hong Kong after reportedly acquiring residency through an investment immigration program.