Yanxi Palace Actress Continued Posing at Cannes Red Carpet When Photographers Told Her to Siam

2019-05-18 , 8:00 pm

“There is no such thing as bad publicity.” – Phineas T. Barnum

Shi Yanfei went to bed after a great night at the Cannes Film Festival and woke up to find her name splashed all over the news.

Who is Shi Yanfei, you may be asking. Isn’t Yanfei a character played by Li Nanxing in The Unbeatables?

If you do not follow Chinese dramas, you probably do not know who she is. But thanks to her gaffe at the Cannes festival, she is now the talk of the town.

Yanxi Palace

Shi Yanfei is the star of the hit Chinese drama Story of Yanxi Palace, and was invited to walk the Cannes festival’s red carpet this year for the first time.

The 32-year-old actress donned a beautiful translucent silver gown with blue details and posed confidently for the cameras.

Cannes Film Festival

So some of you may be asking what the Cannes Festival is about and why this is such a big deal.

Well, the Cannes Film Festival is where acclaimed films are given a nod. Awards are given out to actors and actresses who displayed great craft.

It is held annually in France and many A-lister actors and actresses will flock down to attend the event. Basically, if your film gets selected for Cannes, it is a pretty big deal and you will make it on international news.

So the fact that Shi Yanfei made it to the guest list and was invited to walk the red carpet is pretty impressive.

What everyone is talking about

So what happened is that it was Shi Yanfei’s turn to grace the red carpet.

However, as she is not that famous globally (sorry, the truth hurts), photographers took a few snaps and were ready for the next star to come.

Shi Yanfei appeared to ignore all instruction and continued to pose on the red carpet. It reached a point where photographers stopped taking photos of her entirely and were shouting at her to get off.

Eventually, a Cannes staff member had to usher her off the red carpet.

Her side of the story

The budding actress has since explained her side of the story. She shared that she could not hear what the photographers were saying to her as there were many people screaming at that point in time. Furthermore, she said that she was “extremely nervous and excited” to be there.

Funnily, Shi Yanfei also revealed that she is still confused about whether she was being ushered off the red carpet or not.

Could it be because of the language barrier that she did not completely understand what the people were trying to say too?

Chinese reaction

What went down in Cannes went viral all over the internet. Chinese fans were upset with the beautiful actress for behaving in a way that has “embarrassed” the nation.

The actress was sad to hear this as her first thought when she was told that she was all over the news was that they would be proud that she represented China at an international film festival.

Allowing her to move on

Truth be told, we have all made mistakes before.

Waving back to someone when we think that they are waving back to us and they are actually not.

We are just lucky that there were no cameras to capture that embarrassing moment. I hope that while it is pretty funny that she was so oblivious to what was going on, I hope that she will not have to feel the brunt of cyberbullying.

May she laugh this off and bring pride back to her country with her future work.

And remember, “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” Now we all associate the name Yanfei with a China actress instead of a gambler.