Denise Ho Dropped from Gig After Lancôme Bows to Online Pressure
The singer won't be playing for this brand any time soon.
Cantopop singer Denise Ho Wan-sze, also known as HOCC, has been ditched by a cosmetics brand after an outspoken response from Chinese netizens.
Ho announced on her Facebook page on June 2 that she was due to guest star at a promotional concert for French cosmetics brand Lancôme. The sold-out event immediately provoked calls for a boycott of the brand in Mainland Chinese forums, owing to Denise Ho’s high-profile support for the 2014 Occupy Central movement and her recent meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
Lancôme released a statement on its Facebook page on June 5 announcing that the event, which was intended “to create a happy and relaxing neighborhood event,” would be cancelled due to “possible safety reasons.”
The statement has sparked more than 20,000 angry-face emoticons at the time of writing and triggered a further call for a boycott of the brand in Hong Kong.
Today, Ho released a statement on Facebook lamenting that Lancôme had been forced to bow to “the distorted values of this world” that “punish those who stand for freedom, justice and equality.”