Prada fires ambassador Zheng over surrogacy

Italian luxury brand Prada has ended its contract with Chinese actress Zheng Shuang, who was appointed the brand’s Chinese ambassador just eight days ago, after she was involved in a surrogacy controversy.

Zheng was accused by her ex-boyfriend, producer, Zhang Heng, of considering forcing their surrogate mothers based in the US to terminate their seven-month pregnancies in 2019 because their relationship ended. Surrogacy is illegal in China.

Prada yesterday said it had ended all ties with Zheng, making her the most short-lived ambassador in the brand’s history.

While abortion is a sensitive topic, Zheng’s attitude towards the surogate mothers took social media by storm and heavy criticism poured in.

Zhang said in a Weibo post on Monday that he has been stranded in the US for over a year because Zheng refused to cooperate with paperwork enabling them to return and that he and his family must take care of and protect two young and innocent lives.

Zhang shared several photos to back his claim, including two birth certificates, from Colorado and Nevada, that list Zheng Shuang as the mother, with a date of birth matching her Chinese legal documents.

Later, a 2019 recording was uploaded online by a self-claimed friend of Zhang, allegedly featuring Zheng demanding an end to the pregnancies, which at that point were in their seventh month, or to give the babies up for adoption.

Zheng allegedly can be heard saying that she is gutted that the fetuses can’t be aborted. Her father allegedly proposed to give them up for adoption. Her mother said they wish never to see the children.

Zheng on Weibo stressed she was not willing to expose her privacy today and in a later post accused Zhang of cheating on her but did not comment on the surrogacies.

The hashtags of their birth certificates and the alleged recording saw 3.4 billion and 3 billion views on Weibo.

Prada’s statement ending Zheng’s ambassadorship drew more than 110,000 comments by press time, most urging it to distance itself or making fun of it for associating itself with her.