Here is a news story that seems like it could be straight out of Hollywood. A former SuperGirl contestant from Chengdu has just died from plastic surgery complications. 24 year old Wang Bei, who participated but did not win the popular talent competition in 2005, went under the knife to shave down her jawbones at a plastic surgery hospital in Wuhan. On November 15, Wang and her mother both went in for cosmetic enhancements, Wang Bei going in first. However, complications arose when the doctor punctured a blood vessel. Although she was transferred to another hospital, it was too late to save her.
The news report says Wang’s doctor Wang Liangming could be at fault for negligence and may also have had a history of medical malpractice. He allegedly had a mishap down in Guangzhou and Chinese media say it was only after that that he moved his practice to Chengdu. The hospital has also been criticized for not handling the situation correctly as Wang’s mother was only informed 24 hrs after the fact. Since learning of her daughter’s death, Wang’s mother has not been reachable.
But more likely than not, the reason Wang’s story has captured imagination of the Chinese public, more than a simple issue of medical malpractice, is her heartbreaking tale of aspiring celebrity and the immense pressures that led to her to undergo the surgery in the first place.
After Wang’s unsuccessful run at SuperGirl, she took part in a 2006 talent competition in Chongqing called Dream China. She never successfully signed with a record label but going off her modest fame from SuperGirl, she was able to do a number of media appearances in the years following. She continued to try out for other competitions but the results were always lackluster. By the summer of 2010, she’d started singing in a bar in Qingdao.
Her friends say that Wang was already pretty, with fair skin, pleasant looks, who knew how to dress up but she still felt she needed to alter her looks. Was the surgery a last ditch attempt to kickstart a career in the entertainment biz? It appears to be so. While true fame evaded Wang in her lifetime she finally has our attention now.
