On Friday, after completing formal procedures in Taiwan and having previously filed a marriage application in Tokyo, the couple flew to Los Angeles to begin their honeymoon, according to Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao.

Lin’s management said the couple had not made any decisions about a wedding banquet, but “will share the joy with their families” and: “Of course, the couple are also hoping that in future, there will be a new member of their family”.

This fuelled speculation among fans on social media that the couple would be welcoming a child in the near future.

Lin and Akira met in 2011 when they played husband and wife in a stage adaptation of Red Cliff, a blockbuster set in Imperial China, at the Aoyama Theatre in Tokyo. Lin also appeared in the film, cementing herself as a well-known face in Japan, where the film was particularly successful.

Acting in Red Cliff wasn’t the only time the pair’s careers intersected: both have modelled for Ralph Lauren, and in 2018, Akira became the first Asian man to represent the US fashion brand in global campaigns.

Akira, 37, said on Thursday that, while he and Lin had met and become friends eight years ago, they hadn’t become romantically involved until last year.

The dancer said it was his new wife’s “sense of responsibility and caring nature” that made him fall for her.

“With a smile, she always accepts me for who I am, and I constantly feel nothing but appreciation for her kindness. It pushes me to be better and I truly want to make her happy,” his Instagram post read.

The multilingual pair are said to communicate in a mixture of Japanese and English with some Chinese.

Born in Yokohama, Akira, whose real name is Ryohei Kurosawa, is a member of the long-running pop group Exile, who have sold more than 20 million records and won more than 70 music industry awards in Japan alone.

Although there are 19 listed members in the group, most perform as dancers, with only four credited as vocalists. Akira began dancing in his teens and moved to Tokyo, where he founded a talent agency and make his way into acting.

Not long after Lin was scouted, aged 15, as a model in Taiwan, she moved to Toronto to attend boarding school and university, where she earned a double major in Western art history and economics. She returned to Taiwan and her career as a model took off, leading her into television presenting, acting and singing.

From 2004 to 2006, Lin served as Taiwan’s goodwill ambassador to Japan and began appearing in Japanese adverts. In the late noughties, she was one of the highest-paid and most in-demand faces in the Greater China region.

She was named as one of Asia’s 2018 “Heroes of philanthropy” by Forbes magazine last year, after donating US$1.6 million over three years to a charity that supports schoolchildren in poverty-stricken areas of China, and for raising the same amount through her own Chiling Charity Foundation, which has funded child welfare projects in Taiwan since 2011.

Despite her fame, wealth and achievements in multiple fields in the entertainment industry, Lin, who is 44, faced great scrutiny of her personal life and could not escape the stigma of remaining unmarried into her 40s. Her photograph appears on a Wikipedia entry for “leftover women” – a controversial term in Chinese for women who remain unmarried in their late 20s and onwards.

Lin was branded a “golden leftover woman” by media in the Chinese-speaking world – meaning she was seen as a desirable older woman for her wealth, status and looks. She has previously been romantically linked to Taiwanese actor, model and singer Jerry Yan and to the Taiwanese “toilet tycoon” Qiu Shi-kai.

In a photograph of a handwritten note posted to both Weibo and Instagram alongside her marriage announcement, Lin shared: “I always firmly believed that if I believed strongly enough in love, I would find it.

“I’m married! I hope that everyone who believes in love will find happiness that belongs solely to you.”