Actress denies $1m-a-night prostitution allegations

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is set to take legal action after claims she worked as $1 million-a-night prostitute for ruling members of the Chinese Communist Party

The international star, who has appeared in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha and Rush Hour 2, angrily denied selling sexual favours to party officials and earning $64m (€51m) in the process.

Hong Kong second-best-selling tabloid newspaper Apple Daily claims Ziyi provided sexual services for $1m a night to former commerce minister Bo Xilai and other clients. And The Apple Daily claims Ziyi had earned $64m over four years of prostitution.

Her publicists slammed the reports and vowed to take serious legal action, saying they are “completely untrue and constitute a grave libel upon her”.

“If we leave these lies to spread, what is completely untrue will be at risk of becoming a half-truth. This time, we are telling those rumour-makers that we will respond.

“We will prove our side of the story; we’ll seek legal justice; we’ll find you in the darkest corner and go after you,” it continued.

Ziyi, whose absence from last week’s Cannes premiere of her latest movie Dangerous Liaisons, was noted by the international media, has denied a the charges.

According to the Apple Daily, Zhang Ziyi’s main client was Bo Xilai, who allegedly had sex with her 11 times between 2007 and 2011.

Bo Xilai, though the scion of a family prominent in the Chinese Communist Party, has been hit with a series of scandals involving corruption and abuse of power in recent months leading to his highly unusual dismissal from the party.

The most recent scandal involves accusations that his wife orchestrated the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, because of a conflict of interest. Bo became head of the Communist Party in Chongqing in 2007 after serving as Commerce Minister. He was fired as local party chief in March 2012 and suspended from China’s ruling Politburo in April.