CELEBRITIES from China

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Celebrities of all time. This list of famous Chinese Celebrities is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Jacques Mayol (1927 - 2001)

With an HPI of 60.72, Jacques Mayol is the most famous Chinese Celebrity.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages on wikipedia.

Jacques Mayol (1 April 1927 – 22 December 2001) was a French diver and the holder of many world records in free diving. The 1988 film The Big Blue, directed by Luc Besson, was inspired by his life story and that of his friend, Enzo Maiorca. Mayol was one of the screenwriters and authored the book Homo Delphinus: the Dolphin Within Man of his philosophy about the aquatic origins of humans.

2. Li Wenliang (1986 - 2020)

With an HPI of 47.09, Li Wenliang is the 2nd most famous Chinese Celebrity.  His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Li Wenliang (Chinese: 李文亮; 12 October 1986 – 7 February 2020) was a Chinese Manchurian ophthalmologist who warned his colleagues about early COVID-19 infections in Wuhan. On 30 December 2019, Wuhan CDC issued emergency warnings to local hospitals about a number of mysterious "pneumonia" cases discovered in the city in the previous week. On the same day, Li, who worked at the Central Hospital of Wuhan, received an internal diagnostic report of a suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patient from other doctors which he in turn shared with his Wuhan University alumni through a WeChat group. He was dubbed a whistleblower when that shared report later circulated publicly despite his requesting confidentiality from those with whom he shared the information. Rumors of a deadly SARS outbreak subsequently spread on Chinese social media platforms; Wuhan police summoned and admonished him and seven other doctors on 3 January for "making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak." The outbreak was later confirmed not to be SARS, but rather a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Li returned to work and later contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, from a patient who was not known to be infected. He died from the disease on 7 February 2020, at age 33. A subsequent Chinese official inquiry exonerated him; Wuhan police formally apologized to his family and revoked his admonishment on 19 March. In April 2020, Li was posthumously awarded the May Fourth Medal by the government. By early June 2020, five more doctors from the Wuhan hospital had died from COVID-19.

3. Yu Wenxia (1989 - )

With an HPI of 35.67, Yu Wenxia is the 3rd most famous Chinese Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Yu Wenxia (Chinese: 于文霞; pinyin: Yú Wénxiá; born 6 August 1989) is a Chinese actress, tv host, singer, model and beauty queen who won Miss World 2012 in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, the second Chinese national to do so after Zhang Zilin in 2007.