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Meet Empresses in the Palace’s Meme Tian Pujun, the Chinese drama star who reportedly married Vanke founder and CEO Wang Shi

Meme Tian Pujun has attracted criticism for dismissing the role her husband, Vanke founder and CEO Wang Shi, might have played in raising her profile. Photo: @lovaweddings/Instagram

Fans of hit Chinese drama Empresses in the Palace will surely recognise Meme Tian Pujun, who played the wife of Prince Yun’e, Lady Borjigit. And the obvious similarity between her and her character? Both enjoy being married to an affluent partner.

The internet only truly became curious about the 39-year-old actress after the news broke that she was dating Wang Shi, founder and CEO of Vanke, China’s largest real estate company. And with an age gap of 30 years, the relationship drew even closer attention from the media.

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Born in Shanghai in 1981, Tian started her acting career in Hong Kong with the 2003 movie The Spy Dad starring famous actor, Tony Leung, and later signed a contract with a Hong Kong agency.

 

Yet fame did not arrive overnight. While Tian continued to take minor roles in several movies and TV shows, the lack of success prompted her to return to China and enrol in the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. She eventually returned to Hong Kong to work as a property consultant – a role which enabled her to meet many property tycoons.

China Vanke CEO Wang Shi speaking during the China’s Growth Context session of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland in 2013. Photo: AP.

This was when Tian met Wang, reportedly at an executive MBA class in 2008, when she was 27 and he was 57. The pair was soon spotted travelling to various countries in 2009, but did not officially announce their relationship on Weibo until 2012. Wang later divorced his wife and married Tian, although there are conflicting reports about the exact date – some date the wedding to 2013, while others cite 2018. In any case, her marriage transformed Tian from an unknown actress to the wife of a wealthy CEO scrutinised by the media.

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While the exposure likely didn’t harm her career, Tian began to dissociate herself from Wang, possibly due to accusations of hypocrisy after she said on a live broadcast, “I swear that in this lifetime I will not rely on men and I want to be stronger than men.”

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The Shanghai-born actress received a career boost after she met millionaire Wang Shi and landed a recurring role as Yun’e’s wife Lady Borjigit in the Qing dynasty historical drama series