Chinese actor Zhang Ziyi denies accusations of charity fraud
By admin on 2014-12-29

Actress Zhang Ziyi who was criticized for not honoring her $1 million (6.25 million yuan) fundraising effort to Sichuan earthquake relief responded to the accusations for the first time in an interview with Chinese media last Friday.

She denied committing fraud in the name of charity, but admitted to inexperience when organizing a donation drive for the Sichuan earthquake victims.

The accusations began in February when bloggers on tianya.cn claimed that Zhang had only given 840,000 yuan ($123,500) of her promised 1 million yuan donation to help those affected by the devastating earthquake on May 12, 2008.

The money was pledged to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF).

The web page outlining CRCF donations shows that on May 15, 2008, Zhang remitted two donations of 440,000 yuan ($64,447) and 400,000 ($58,588) yuan to the CRCF.

Previous reports indicated that Zhang had promised to donate 1 million yuan of her own money within a few days of the quake. But later when she was at the Cannes Film Festival in France, she said that she had raised the total $1 million she had promised.

However, Zhang told Chinese media last Friday that the $1 million was the amount that she had "hoped" to raise, but had never claimed to have "already" raised that amount. The actual amount pledged for the Zhang Ziyi Foundation is actually less than $500,000, most of which has not been given.

Zhang said she had been contacting donors to honor their pledges, but her efforts have not been very successful. So far, only $15,050 has been collected. She said she would personally make up for the shortfall but would not reveal the names of the supposed donors.

She also mentioned her foundation was registered in California two days before her fundraising effort in Cannes. The foundation, a non-profit organization, is of good standing and there have been no financial irregularities, she said.

The actress sobbed when talking about how the scandal impacted her and her family. Zhang added she wants to give something back to society because she had got so much from it.