When the 77th Cannes Film Festival opened on May 14, people on mainland social media were bewildered by a mysterious Chinese woman who got more red carpet attention than top celebrities like Gong Li.
While veteran actress Gong – making her 20th visit to the festival – only got a long shot during the live opening broadcast, the mystery woman received a long, 90-second close-up shot.
She was later revealed to be Wan Qianhui, an influencer with 6.5 million followers on Douyin.
Wan is also known as the wife of famous Chinese musician San Bao.
Their marriage in 2017 sparked heated online reactions because Wan, born in 1993, is 25 years younger than her husband.
Wan started dating San Bao when she was a student at the Department of Musical Theatre in the Central Academy of Drama, China’s top drama and stage arts institution.
Despite being described as a gold-digger, a description typically used to stigmatise young women who marry powerful older men, Wan did not live up to her haters’ expectations.
She started her own career as an e-commerce influencer after giving birth to two children in 2020.
She mainly sells maternity and baby products and generated up to 30-million-yuan (US$4.15 million) gross merchandise volume in one livestream session.
Wan donned a custom Harvey Cenit black and white dress for the festival’s opening ceremony, and a fairy silver gown plus headdress, adorned with pink flowers, by JoliPoli Couture on the next day’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga premiere.
It is the second time Wan appeared on the Cannes red carpet following her debut last year. Both times she was styled by Bu Kewen and Wish Gui, stylists for actress Fan Bingbing.
Fan was the pioneer of Chinese celebrities who walked the Cannes red carpet without having any work selected by the festival.
According to the mainland media outlet Yangcheng Evening News, people without work can also walk the red carpet by buying passes from the festival’s collaborating or sponsoring companies.
It is said that Wan went to Cannes in 2023 as the top salesperson of Fan Bingbing’s beauty brand Fan Beauty. Wan said she came to the 2024 Cannes with a piece of her work, but did not specify which.
Wan said she has achieved success in the business world and would love to pursue her career as an actress next.
She said she felt proud when staff at Cannes recognised her and called out her name, but meanwhile she felt “an itch” to come to Cannes with a piece of her work in the future.