Janet Yang, “Pillar” of Hollywood’s Asian-American Community, Honored at Academy Museum

‘Single’s Inferno’ star returns to YouTube months after fake designer clothing scandal

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🏆 The Headlines

Janet Yang, “Pillar” of Hollywood’s Asian-American Community, Honored at Academy Museum — The veteran producer and governor-at-large on the Academy's board had a pillar dedicated to her and a dinner held in her honor at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

• Janet Yang, the veteran Hollywood producer who has been described as “the godmother of Asian-Americans in the industry” — and who is rumored to be a candidate to succeed David Rubin as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors, on which she has served as a governor-at-large for the last three years and a vice president for the past year, in August — was feted on Tuesday evening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, where a pillar was dedicated and a dinner was held in her honor.

• If Yang — the daughter of Chinese immigrants who made her name connecting the Chinese and Hollywood film industries before serving as a producer on films like The Joy Luck Club and The People vs. Larry Flynt — wasn’t planning on seeking the presidency of the Academy’s board prior to Tuesday’s gathering, she would be crazy not to after it, given how many industry power-players came out to celebrate her.

• The dinner, which featured a buffet of Chinese food, was attended by numerous Academy governors and other notables ranging from the legendary 93-year-old actor James Hong to Katherine Ho, the singer whose cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow” was featured in Crazy Rich Asians. Speakers included Kramer; Rubin (on behalf of both himself and outgoing Academy CEO Dawn Hudson, who was unable to attend after contracting COVID); GoldHouse CEO and co-founder Bing Chen; California State Treasurer Fiona Ma; Jim Henson Company CEO Lisa Henson; and the actor Daniel Dae Kim, who said of Yang, “It’s only fitting that it’s a pillar that she’s receiving, because she’s been that for so many.”

‘Single’s Inferno’ star returns to YouTube months after fake designer clothing scandal — South Korean influencer Song Ji-a returned to YouTube five months after taking a break from social media.

• Song, 25, was embroiled in a scandal after several internet sleuths discovered she was wearing fake designer clothing on Netflix’s “Single’s Inferno,” a South Korean dating show that has contestants search for a partner while stranded on an island called “Inferno.”

• Song, also known as Freezia, returned to social media earlier this month with a post on Instagram. In the post, she thanked her fans, whom she referred to as “Pringies,” for their “concern and support,” and she also relayed that she is “in good health.”

• In her vlog, Song expresses how much she missed her fans and tells them that she reads their messages every night, but she could not talk to them for months because she could not find the courage. “I missed the chitchats I had with you, where we’d share too much information about ourselves and such… I wanted to go back into the KakaoTalk chat room with you, but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the courage to,” she said.

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