'Do you want to have sex with me?' Taiwanese singer Bobby Chen accused of sexual harassment

Taiwanese veteran singer Bobby Chen is the latest celebrity to be accused of sexual harassment as the country's showbiz is swept by their own #MeToo movement.

On June 10, a designer named Wei Chia Lu accused a singer surnamed Chen of sexual harassment. In an update yesterday (July 13), she named the person to be Bobby, 64.

"I didn't want to get stuck on this anymore, but seeing that Bobby Chen announced a concert, I decided to share my mental journey over the past few days," she explained in her post yesterday.

Lu explained that she had received a "so-called apology letter" from Bobby's team after her original post that she deemed to be "revised and evasive". The letter, she claimed, falsely described the incident and omitted any mention that Bobby had verbally sexually harassed her.

She addressed Bobby directly in her post: "I know one's talent and work shouldn't be built on someone else's pain."

In her original post, Lu claimed to have designed an album for the singer in 2018 and the communication was done through a third party. The process was professional, and she subsequently met him twice in September 2019.

The first time they met at his workplace, Lu considered Bobby "a little weird" and claimed he stared at her blatantly.

"Then he leaned in front of me, looking at my face from different angles. He didn't speak during the process, which made me very uncomfortable," she said.

He offered her a beer, which she refused.

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A few days later, she received a call from the project planner and claimed to overhear Bobby yelling that her album design was bad and she had "screwed it up". She also claimed to hear him demand for her to go to his office immediately or he'd "kill himself to show" her.

While she was at his office revising the album design, Lu claimed Bobby touched her face and physically forced her to drink whisky despite Lu telling him she was allergic to alcohol.

"I don't know whether it was because of the alcohol or shock, but my heartbeat and thoughts were all messed up after that," she wrote.

She claimed that Bobby also asked her personal questions and asked if she was "mentally handicapped" when she refused to answer them, and that he told her she could get connections in the industry if she slept with his artist friend.

She also claimed he told her three times: "Do you want to have sex with me? I'm just kidding!" and made comments about her physique.

Lu claimed she was forced to drink a bottle of soju and half a glass of whisky and felt she was about to pass out. When she booked an Uber as "an excuse to escape", she alleged that Lu yelled at her and threatened to smash her laptop.

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"On the way home, the driver was surprised that I was so drunk around 8pm that I couldn't even walk straight," she wrote.

"At that moment, I felt very wronged and could only look out the window and hold back my nausea and tears."

She wrote that she vomited after she returned home and that her "tears of grievance, humiliation and fear burst out".

Lu explained that her reason for making the Facebook post was because she hated herself for "being so full of hate" towards Bobby and that she wanted to move on and "take the next step" after writing down her experience.

"What I want to say is that, although time will forget, the victim will always remember," she concluded.

Bobby has yet to make a public comment about the accusations, though his latest Facebook post about his upcoming show has been flooded with demands for him to apologise.

"How do you still have the face to hold a concert?" a netizen commented.

Another commented on a previous post by Bobby: "Please respond publicly to the designer's accusations against you. Please do not disappoint those who believe in your integrity and kindness."

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drimac@asiaone.com

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