Coronavirus celebrity donations: Fan Bingbing, Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu, Angelababy and others who are digging deep to help the victims of Wuhan virus
Fans of K-pop group BTS are also digging deep to support those impacted by the virus, along with the Jack Ma Foundation and American firm Cargill, which will donate 2 million yuan to the Red Cross
The biggest shortage facing many countries is surgical face masks, so Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu and husband Wang Xiaofei donated 10,000 masks they bought in Japan. They shipped the masks to Wuhan, according to the New Straits Times. “Today, we're sending [the masks] to a contact of mine in Wuhan and he'll help us to donate it. Moving forward, we will find more professional surgical face masks in Japan,” he told The Star Online. The celebrity couple initially drew criticism for the donation, as it was a “mere 200,000 yuan”, according to the report, and have since “topped it up to a total of one million yuan” (US$144,000).
Other celebrities organised fundraising events. Chinese singer and songwriter Han Hong formed a charity drive to help victims who have been affected along with Taiwanese singer-actress Michelle Chen, actress Sun Li and actor and model Chen Xiao.
Chinese actor Zhu Yilong, who is from Wuhan and is best known for his role in Love Three Lives, donated US$86,000 to the Wuhan Benevolent General Association, according to the New Straits Times.
Even concerned fans have helped out. According to website KpopStarz, Jungkook China, the biggest fan club in China for the K-pop band BTS, said it had donated 52,000 yuan (US$7,500) to the residents of the Wuhan community. “A Chinese Fanclub for BTS Jungkook sent donations and supplies in advance for Wuhan epidemic outbreak”, KpopStarz announced on Twitter.
The Global Times tweeted: “Chinese fan clubs for popular stars including #WangYibo, #CaiXukun and #EXO actively organise donations of funds and medical goods to #Wuhan to fight against #WuhanCoronavirus. Red Cross Society of China Hubei Branch received over 10,000 yuan (US$1,449) from #XiaoZhan's fans”.
One person tweeted a list of Chinese fan clubs that have donated so far. “100 Chinese fandoms united in supporting Wuhan Donation of 143,100 medical gloves to Wuhan university Zhong Nan hospital WayV Fandom is part of this project”.