His early life 

Luhan, whose real name is Lu Han, was born on April 20, 1990 in Beijing’s Haidian district.

He was an exchange student at Yonsei University, a private university in Seoul before being scouted by a representative of the SM Entertainment talent agency in 2008.

He took part in the company’s annual audition in 2010 and later became an SM trainee for two years.

He made his first televised stage performance at the annual music festival, SBS Gayo Daejeon (or SBS Battle of the Bands) in 2011, and was officially introduced as the second of the four Chinese members of the Mandarin-language subgroup, EXO-M, shortly after this first appearance.

He left the band to become a solo artist in late 2014.

Star of the silver screen 

Branching out on your own after being part of a widely known group is no easy task for any artist.

In 2015 Luhan made his film debut in the Chinese romantic comedy, 20 Once Again – a remake of the South Korean 2014 smash hit, Miss Granny – about an old woman who finds herself changed back into her 20-year-old self.

His impressive performance as the grandson of the heroine earned him two prizes – newcomer of the year and most popular actor – at the 2015 Beijing International Film Festival and Beijing College Student Film Festival, respectively.

He also performed the recording-breaking song, Our Tomorrow, featured in the film. The view count and stream count of the music video both surpassed one million on YouTube, the video sharing website, within 47 minutes and 40 minutes respectively.

The film soundtrack hit the No 1 spot on the 24-hour Trending list on Weibo, China’s most popular social media platform.

Record sales for debut album 

In December 2015, Luhan released his first digital album, called, “Reloaded”.

It topped Japan’s Tower Records chart, and was also the only mainland China music release to feature the top five of Taiwan’s G-Music year-end chart.

It went on to win the best digital album of the year prize and Luhan was named the best male singer of the year at the 2016 QQ Music Awards.

“Reloaded” broke the record as the fastest selling digital album, with sales of more than one million copies in five days.

In 2016 “Reloaded” was also certified as having platinum sales by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry – making it the first album from mainland China to achieve this.

The album went on to achieve sales of more two million copies, making Luhan the first Chinese singer to achieve double platinum album sales.

A Guinness World Record holder 

Luhan’s success in music and acting are unquestionable, but that’s not the end of his talents.

He is also a two-time Guinness World Records holder.

Luhan is linked to the record for the largest gathering of people wearing antlers – 1,731 of his fans – who turned up at one of his concerts in Beijing in March 2016.

He also holds the record for the most comments on a Weibo post, after he posted the words, “That’s why I love Manchester United!”, in 2012. On its last official update, on April 2016, it had received a total of 100,899,012 comments.

Luhan was also ranked second on the 2017 Forbes China Celebrity 100 list, and was the first artist born after 1990 to be given the title of artist of the year by China Newsweek.

Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter