AMONG the closed social media accounts in the cleanup operation, the most notable one belongs to Zhuo Wei, who is known as China’s No.1 paparazzo.

Zhuo has made a big name for himself over the past few years since he began giving up-to-date status reports on the private lives of Chinese celebrities including actress Zhang Ziyi’s love affair, director Zhang Yimo’s secret young wife and three children, and singer Faye Wong’s divorce.

He shot to fame in 2014 after revealing Chinese movie star Wen Zhang’s extramarital affair with Yao Di, his co-star in hit television series, “Naked Marriage.” Recently, Zhuo also created a wave on Sina Weibo for revealing actress Bai Baihe was “secretly dating” and “flirting” with a young male model in Thailand. The “extramarital affair” soon dominated entertainment headlines.

Born in 1971, Zhuo described the place he grew up as a “slum” in Tianjin. Coming from a relatively poor family, he used to be a very shy and introverted person. Before entering the media industry, he worked as a secretary in a factory and later in a cinema.

Always dreaming of becoming a journalist, Zhuo finally seized the chance to work for a local Tianjin newspaper in 2000.

However, soon after he started out Zhuo discovered that general entertainment coverage held no challenge for him. Therefore, in 2003, he moved to Beijing and joined Big Star, one of the very first tabloid-styled weekly magazines on the Chinese mainland. Here he discovered his talent and passion for professional paparazzi work. More importantly, it was there that he met his business partner Feng Ke, who has cooperated with Zhuo ever since.

At the beginning the two knew nothing about being a paparazzi and it often took them half a month to get a single bit of information. They were also easily caught by celebrities when attempting to photograph them.

But soon, Zhuo had his own working studio and his team had acquied extensive knowledge of celebrity license plate numbers, addresses, likes and dislikes, and even keeps track of birthdays.

Zhuo explains that there are two kinds of sources: paid informants such as waitresses and bartenders, and people involved in celebrity circles such as managers and agents.

“What the latter tell us most of the time are rumors. It’s our job to carry out an investigation,” he said. (SD-Agencies)