QUIRKY WORLD ... Chinese actor’s apology to wife over infidelity sets web record

CHINA: An actor’s apology to his actress wife following rumours of his infidelity has set a record for comments and retweets on China’s version of Twitter.

The scandal surrounding film and TV star Wen Zhang has resonated among Chinese partly because of his image as a sensitive and happily married family man, and the volume of comments underlines the relative freedom users have to focus on entertainment news online where politics is often off-limits.

Wen Zhang posted a statement on Monday that his wife, Ma Yili, “and the children could have had a warm and nice life, but everything was destroyed by me”. By yesterday, his post had been forwarded more than 1.2m times and received nearly 1.9m comments. Many comments expressed anger toward Wen, who has more than 52m followers.