Cheng Yi rose to fame with his performances in “Love and Redemption” and “Mysterious Lotus Casebook,” and is regarded as one of the leading actors among China’s post-90s generation, seen as a top rival of Xiao Zhan. Recently, however, after he filed lawsuits against anti-fans, a civil court decision circulated online. Netizens were shocked to find it listed his real name as "Fu Shiqi (Cheng Yi's real name), born April 13, 1989,” which is completely different from his public profile stating he was born May 17, 1990. This suggests he shouldn’t be classified as a post-90s actor, but as a post-85s, sparking suspicions of age falsification. Some netizens even mocked, “If not even the birthday is real, what is?”
The Chinese drama industry commonly divides age groups in five-year brackets, and actors or actresses from the same cohort, such as post-85s or post-90s, are compared and selected accordingly. As a result, artists born in 1984 or 1989 sometimes underreport their age by a year to avoid moving up an entire age bracket due to being just one year older, which can make them seem much older. Previously, Cheng Yi was asked on a program which year he was born in, and he answered 1990, leading to accusations from netizens that he was lying.
In response, his former agent Liang Ting stepped forward to clarify: “This was my fault, not Cheng Yi’s issue. At the time, his family told me Cheng Yi was raised by his grandmother, and they reported his age as one year older when registering his household registration, so he could start school a year earlier. In reality, he was born in 1990.” She also stated that the information on Cheng Yi’s Baidu Baike profile was her decision and idea, not Cheng Yi’s, but did not specifically explain why the birthday did not match. Some netizens are questioning whether this could be illegal, saying that changing one’s birthdate just to start school early cannot be allowed, and are calling for police intervention and investigation.
Source: Apple Online News