China’s entertainment industry was recently rocked by controversy after actress Wang Yuwen made the rare and shocking decision to publicly suspend promotions for a drama in which she stars.
The urban romantic drama A sudden love officially premiered not long ago, marking the on-screen reunion of Wang Yuwen and actor Chen Xingxu. Centered on the concept of time travel, the series tells the story of streamer Qiu Huaner (Wang Yuwen) and domineering CEO Gao Haiming (Chen Xingxu). Their love story takes place across two different timelines, creating chaotic yet hilarious situations as modern sensibilities collide with another era.
Thanks to its fresh premise and fast-paced narrative, A sudden love was quickly labeled a “dark horse” of the New Year’s drama season. Just three days after its release, the series surpassed 25,000 heat points on Tencent Video and recorded nearly 1 billion views on Douyin. Much of this success has been attributed to Wang Yuwen’s proactive promotional efforts, including frequent live streams, self-produced short videos to increase traffic, and participation in offline advertising events.
However, in the early hours of January 25, Wang Yuwen’s studio released a bombshell statement announcing the immediate suspension of all promotional activities related to A sudden love. The statement accused the drama’s publicity team of spreading harmful rumors and intentionally stirring controversy on social media platforms.
According to the studio, Wang Yuwen had followed the production team’s request to release two promotional videos on Douyin in a single day, an action that unintentionally violated an unwritten Weibo rule regarding the frequency of posting during a drama’s airing period. Instead of taking responsibility, the drama’s PR team allegedly shifted the blame to the actress, falsely claiming that she had acted independently. More seriously, they have been accused of spreading defamatory statements suggesting this “Wang Yuwen has problems with his character.”
These false narratives reportedly caused platforms to directly blame the actress, placing her in a passive position and significantly damaging her public image. Wang Yuwen’s study pointed out that all promotional tasks had been completely completed before the controversy. Even more worrying is the fact that the PR team allegedly contacted the platforms and conveyed misleading information without informing the actress, completely breaking the fundamental trust required for professional collaboration.
Just two hours later, the production team is behind A sudden love issued an urgent apology. Through the drama’s official Weibo account, they admitted that their affiliated publicity team had spread unfounded rumors and severely tarnished Wang Yuwen’s reputation and personal integrity. The production team announced three immediate measures: the dismissal of all staff involved, the cessation of collaboration with the problematic PR team and a complete restructuring and standardization of the promotional and distribution processes. An official apology was also sent directly to Wang Yuwen’s studio.
This short-lived but explosive clash highlighted a long-standing problem within China’s entertainment industry: actors being scapegoated for promotional strategy failures. Although Wang Yuwen later reassured fans that the matter had been properly resolved, online discussions continued to escalate.
Within just half a day, the controversy over Wang Yuwen erupted A sudden love rose to the top of Weibo’s hottest searches twice, accumulating more than 200 million reads. Many netizens criticized the drama’s publicity team for what they described as a “self-destructive” management of the situation, while expressing sympathy for the actress caught in the crossfire.
