Former K-pop Idol Kris Wu Faces Backlash Following Pedophilia Accusations

Former member of the K-pop idol group EXO and Chinese celebrity Kris Wu has been accused of predatory sexual behaviour.

The allegations made by 19-year-old woman Du Meizhu against the Canadian-Chinese singer of grooming underage girls, rape, and threats, has infuriated the Chinese social media users who are trending the issue on Weibo.

As of July 19, a total of 24 young women have made accusations against Kris Wu. Following Du Meizhu’s accusation, other women also accused Wu of trying to seduce them despite their young age which led to the campaign aimed at supporting the survivors.

However, the pop star firmly denied the allegations on July 19 on social media.

“I only met Miss Du once at a friend’s gathering, I didn’t ply her with alcohol … I have never ‘coerced women into sex’ or engaged in ‘date rape’,” he wrote.

Wu went on to assert that he does not have sex with underage girls while his studio confirmed that they will be filing a police report as well as a defamation suit against Du.

The accusations against the Chinese singer Kris Wu

On July 18, the Chinese news portal Netease published an exclusive interview with Du Meizhu wherein she asserted that she is seeking justice for eight survivors, including herself and two minors.

She accused the 30-year-old pop star of date-raping her when she was 17 and revealed that she was threatened with the consequences of offending Wu.

Du also alleged that the former k-pop star paid her 500,000 yuan to "keep quiet", however, she decided to speak up as she wanted to be the "the last victim".

The legal age of sexual consent is 14 in China while the law stipulates people under 18 are minors.

Initially, Du Meizhu provided unverified screenshots of chat conversations from the survivors on July 8 on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo.

"Due to privacy concerns, I won’t reveal the names of the underage victims. But I found out from these videos that you have certain “standards” — like that the girls have to be born in the 2000s or that they’re around the age when they have to take college entrance exams," she wrote in her post.

How has the world reacted to the scandal?

According to Global Times, women internet users in the country have initiated a campaign on social media called "GirlsHelpGirls" after more young women came out to accuse the pop star of similar behaviour.

Reportedly, the singer who holds several lucrative advertising deals with foreign luxury brands has been dropped by Shanghai cosmetics brand Kans, music streaming platform Yunting, and household detergent maker Libai.

On the other hand, the South Korean boy band EXO got embroiled in the scandal and became a target of cyberbullying. However, k-pop fans came through for the group. With a hashtag trend on Twitter "exo is 9", the fans reminded others that the members are no longer associated with Wu.

Protect the remaining 9 members from any type of harrassment that they are not be involved? I think that is more important than anything else. You can defend him, but pls remove the EXO part. We had enough, dont associate EXO to this issue

— ash (◡ ω ◡) ae ᴸ¹⁴⁸⁵ (@nuhes__ho) July 18, 2021

Kris Wu was one of twelve members of the EXO lineup that debuted in 2012. Along with other former members such as Lu Han and Tao, he left the group in 2014 due to various legal battles.

The k-pop band members have not made any remark on this matter.