Eleanor Lee is exonerated after a former assistant admitted to the doctoring of the ‘leaked’ audio

Eleanor Lee on an Instagram reel. Screen shot: eleanorleex/Instagram

The wronged Singaporean actress in China is finally able to breathe easy. Following a former assistant’s admission of doctoring and fabricating the audio recording—due to a personal dispute—that had put Eleanor Lee Kaixin (李凯馨) in bad light, the daughter of Quan Yifeng (权怡凤) has shared a reel on Instagram to respond to the latest development. Speaking glumly in Mandarin and looking like she was reading off a teleprompter, Ms Lee started with: “Regarding the false recordings that have been circulating online recently, I have reported the case to the police and will fully cooperate with the investigation.” She let on that the Singapore Embassy was also involved. She did not, however, mention the name of the troublemaker (identified in mainland Chinese press by a Weibo handle ‘鱼了个鲸_’), but in the comments that accompanied the video, she wrote of a 前助理 (qianzhuli) or former assistant.

In the reel, Ms Lee stood in front of what looked like doors of a wenge utility cupboard. But that was not the curiosity-arousing part. The actress was totally not made up. When we first saw the screen shot of the video in the Chinese media earlier, we thought that it was an image of the now-probably-unemployed assistant. But as it turned out, it was the wronged starlet herself. Ms Lee appeared to be without makeup because she faced the camera with messy brows, to say the least. Her hair was pulled and tied to the back, as if she just woke or was ready for her mug shot. She wore a long-sleeved khaki T-shirt with black shorts. The top was not unlike those from her fashion line No Labels. A small bump on the right shoulder of the tee suggested that it was removed from an inexpensive wire hanger just before she put it on to go in front of the camera.

When we first saw the screen shot of the video in the Chinese media earlier, we thought that it was an image of the now-probably-unemployed assistant

It is not clear why, despite the exoneration, Ms Lee saw it necessary to appear to be pitted. The particular reel in the IG grid stood out against the other images of her—nearly always cutesy-sexy, with luscious cascading hair and noticeable makeup that Xia Xue will readily approve. She stood very still, keeping both legs straight; her hands were brought to the front and placed on her stomach. It looked like she was doing a first take before a tough and exacting director of a just-filming TV series in which she was about to be punished by a school principal. She spoke in a relatively low resgister, possibly to sound serious, which, together with her natural and unadorned appearance, seemed calculated to emphasise her honesty and vulnerability in the face of the damaging audio clip.

Eleanor Lee repeated what she had said earlier when she denied that the voice in the leaked recording was hers: “I was born in Taiwan and am now a Singapore citizen. When I was 16, I returned to China to live and to learn. I adore (the exact phrase she used was 非常热爱 [feichang reai ] or ardently love) this piece of land. Problems regarding China’s position, I will not waver.” It is not clear why she needed to emphasise those points and describe her ardour so hyperbolically, but the explicit statement about her birthplace, citizenship, and unwavering attitude on China’s stance (on what, she did not say) was likely a strategic move at damage control and to affirm unequivocally her loyalty to a country she cannot call her own. A carefully crafted political and professional declaration to debunk the believe that she shares the cognizance of the 甜美纯真 (tianmei chunzhen), sweet and innocent lasses that she mostly plays.