Fan Bingbing may be dating ex-military man

BEIJING • Chinese actress Fan Bingbing (right), who has been keeping a low profile since her tax evasion scandal in 2018, was spotted with a new man recently.

While the 40-year-old has not confirmed that she is in a relationship, there has been footage circulating which allegedly shows her behaving intimately outside a restaurant with a tall bespectacled man.

He appeared to hug her and kiss her forehead, and she even caressed his tummy.

Eagle-eyed netizens also scrutinised a recent video of her singing karaoke and found a similar-looking man sitting next to her.

As news of her romance went viral on Weibo over the weekend, a netizen came forward to dish more juicy details on the rumoured boyfriend.

This person claimed to work in the financial company where the mystery man was the chief executive. Before that, he was said to have spent 18 years in the military. He is reportedly the same age as Fan.

Fan - who broke up with actor Li Chen, 43, in 2019 in the wake of her scandal - has been single ever since, hence the intense scrutiny of her love life.

Once one of China's most internationally renowned actresses, the scandal wiped out her career, as well as her personal fortune, as she was fined 883 million yuan for tax evasion.

However, she is said to be on the brink of a comeback, as she recently made a guest appearance on K-drama Insider, which started airing on June 8.

The star of X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) also graced the cover of Glass magazine's June issue, her first in China since the scandal broke.