At a free exhibition hosted by a Chinese influencer, a boy was playing around and dropped a 1.8-kilogram gold crown on the floor, damaging it. The influencer released video of the incident and appealed for sympathy over the damage, but public criticism poured in and followers plummeted, widening the controversy.
According to local outlets including Yangcheng Evening News, influencer Zhang Kaiyi, who has tens of millions of followers, posted on her social media on the 13th, saying, "This phoenix gold crown was designed and made by my husband himself, so it cannot be bought on the market and cannot be priced," and "It is so precious to us, and I am very upset that it was damaged," in a video.
The released CCTV footage shows a boy playing, including hugging the display stand on which the gold crown was placed. In the process, the stand tilted, the glass cover came off, and the gold crown inside fell to the floor. The exhibition was a free event co-hosted with her husband, sculptor Zhang Yudong, and Zhang Kaiyi also sought advice from online users on how to calculate the amount of damage.
After the video was released, some online users argued, "Didn't you post the video to blame the child?" while others criticized, "The exhibition hall was shoddy from the start." In the aftermath, tens of thousands of Zhang Kaiyi's followers unfollowed, causing a stir.
As the controversy grew, Zhang Kaiyi posted another video explaining, "The gold crown is insured, and we have never asked the child's family for compensation." Even so, she drew a line, saying there was no intent to attack anyone but she could not accept claims that "because the child is young, there is no fault," or that "the display method was wrong." In China, the expense to repair a 1.8-kilogram gold ornament is estimated to run into tens of millions of won.