A Chinese host famous for giving money to people in remote villages on a popular live-streaming website in China has been revealed to have been faking his acts of generosity, reported the South China Morning Post.
The Chinese live-streaming site Kuai Shou reportedly has three billion users.
The host, whose Kuai Shou user ID is “Brother Jie”, was shown engaging in charitable acts in the Daliangshan area.
The mountainous area in south-western Sichuan province has more than 50,000 poor residents, the Chengdu Commercial Daily reported.
Video footage widely shared online showed two men distributing money and food to villagers. This included elderly people and children standing in two rows, with “Brother Jie” saying, “Keep shooting, stand in a row, let’s keep shooting!”, the report said.
The video later revealed “Brother Jie” taking back the money from the villagers.
Another video showed him standing beside some elderly villagers and children, waving a stack of about a 100 banknotes.
“Brother Jie” said in the video: “To my fans, I will fulfil my promise of giving out 30,000 yuan (S$6,123) to the 15 poorest families here in this village, each can have 2,000 yuan.”
He then distributed the money to the villagers.
It was reported that the two videos were taken at the same location with the same people, but the first video revealed the money was taken back.
“Brother Jie” admitted to being in both videos and that he had taken the money back from the villages.
“I dare to admit that I take the money back, but dare the other hosts on this site who claim to be doing acts of charity admit as well?” he was quoted as saying.
He said someone had secretly recorded the video of him retrieving the money back, which made him angry.
The host then uploaded an apology video for his fans in which he drank a full bottle of detergent. He was rushed to hospital after doing so, the report said.
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This article was first published on Nov 7, 2016.
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