The cover photo of Meng Jia's new single. Photo: Weibo

 Meng Jia, a Chinese entertainer who became widely known through 2020’s hot reality TV show Sisters Who Make Waves, recently became involved in a plagiarism scandal after netizens noticed that the music album cover for her new single “Glass Wall” copied a Ukrainian model’s Instagram photo. 

The album cover is bold, showing Meng wearing only unbuttoned denim jeans and wrapping her arms around her naked top half to cover her breasts. When Meng posted the album cover to China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo on Thursday, she pointed out that she couldn’t come up with an outfit to express the meaning of the song while she was writing it and emphasized that the album cover took her great effort to design. 

Meng’s post quickly attracted netizens’ attention, with some attentive ones noticing that the cover looked extremely similar to a photo Ukrainian model Sasha Barss posted on Instagram, in which the model’s half-naked outfit and pose is identical to Meng’s. 

“Cost a lot of effort to design? Do you think we are all fools?” one netizen posted on Sina Weibo. 

“It is bold, bold in copying and pasting without changing even a tiny bit,” wrote another. 

Meng’s team issued a statement later that same day after more and more netizens urged the Chinese celebrity to respond to the accusations. The team confirmed that they were already trying to contact the photo’s original creator and are seeking to negotiate with the creator about a compensation plan. Meng herself, also posted on Sina Weibo to conclude the incident, saying “sorry, regret, and a lesson learnt.” 

“Popular stars like her should be more careful about such things for the sake of setting a good example for others,” posted one netizen on Sina Weibo.

“I hope the scandal does not become something that stigmatizes her song,” said another.