This viral story about a Chinese lesbian billionaire couple was an amazing hoax
It was the best billionaire lesbian love story you never knew you wanted to believe.
Two apparently Chinese billionaires who were in a lesbian relationship had got married.
A tweet was posted with an image of two women attached, and within hours the internet was convinced of the stunning love story.
But call it fake news or fan fiction, the story of Meng Mei Qi and Wu Xuan Yi was too good to be true.
The online post claiming they had wed received more than 20,000 shared.
It read: “Lesbian Chinese Billionaires, Meng Mei Qi and Wu Xuan Yi, marry. Making them the richest couple alive.”
[BREAKING] Lesbian Chinese Billionaires, Meng Mei Qi and Wu Xuan Yi, marry. Making them the richest couple alive. pic.twitter.com/IEoMunC6s4
— ً? (@Iuvizone) April 26, 2017
The internet could not get enough of this lesbian power couple.
However there was one significant problem with the viral post: it wasn’t true.
Neither of the women are billionaires, and they are not in a same-sex relationship with one another.
They are, however, members of the South Korean–Chinese band Cosmic Girls, also known as WJSN.
The photo that convinced the internet of their marriage had been taken earlier in the week at the Beijing International Film Festival.
It showed the two women in flowing dresses – which the fake tweet made to look like wedding dresses and cropped out two men.
WJSN member Xuan Yi had uploaded the image to the internet.
Abby Fry, the teen behind the original post, spoke to BuzzFeed News about her reasons for the original post.
She said it had been a joke designed to entertain fans of the group.
She couldn’t believe the reaction after it went viral.
Fry told BuzzFeed News: “I thought they looked like they were at a wedding with the dresses they were wearing, and the dresses sure looked expensive,” Fry said.
She said that she thought people would fact-check first, but added that it “just shows the power of what we want to happen.”
Eventually the internet clocked that it had not been real – but it was still pretty epic.
