Have Zhou Xun and Archie Kao split up?

Chinese actress Zhou Xun and Chinese-American actor Archie Kao in a photo taken in Hawaii in 2014.
Chinese actress Zhou Xun and Chinese-American actor Archie Kao in a photo taken in Hawaii in 2014. PHOTO: ARCHIE KAO/WEIBO

BEIJING • Chinese actress Zhou Xun married Chinese-American actor Archie Kao in 2014, but they have been constantly dogged by rumours of a split.

Zhou, 45, and Kao, 50, have rarely been seen together in public since their wedding and have had almost no interaction with each other on social media since 2017.

Netizens have cited several reasons for their possible split, including their long-distance relationship as Zhou is based in China and Kao is mostly in the United States.

He has acted in American television series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000 to 2015) and Chicago P.D. (2014 to present).

The actor has ventured into Chinese movies and TV serials in the last few years, acting in films like Ulterior Motive (2015) and Legend Of The Ancient Sword (2018) and series such as Fighter Of The Destiny (2017) and Nothing Gold Can Stay (2017).

Zhou's agency has not been responding to speculation of their split after denying the rumour early on in their marriage.

On Wednesday, eagle-eyed netizens noted that Kao had deleted all his photos with Zhou on his Instagram account. His last photo on Instagram was of him at Inspiration Point in the US on Tuesday with the caption: "Social distancing in nature."

However, the photos of him and Zhou were still on his Weibo account.

Meanwhile, Zhou has not posted photos of them together on Weibo for some time.

She has acted in movies such as Painted Skin (2008) and The Silent War (2012) and starred as the consort Ruyi in the TV serial, Ruyi's Royal Love In The Palace (2018).

Zhou and fellow actress Zhang Ziyi are the only two artists who have won Taiwan's Golden Horse Award, the Hong Kong Film Award and China's Golden Rooster Award.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 23, 2020, with the headline Have Zhou Xun and Archie Kao split up?. Subscribe