Jaspers Lai, a 35-year-old Malaysian-born Singaporean actor, shared on his social media accounts his unfortunate experience with a Malaysian media company that failed to pay production fees.
Jaspers Lai: ‘It doesn’t matter if you suffer by yourself, but the artists and behind-the-scenes staff who work with me are innocent’
*translated* “…company said it would give a deposit but didn’t give it”, said Lai as he posts about his team’s experience with the said media company.
Jaspers Lai is well-known on the Internet because of his role as a “tooth mushroom”. He also founded “YaGood Entertainment”. The studio invited the controversial media company to produce a total of two programs this year.
After the programs were filmed and launched, Lai and his team waited for about a year for the media company to fulfil its pending payments. Although the media company pays for their debt slowly, they still owe most of the production costs. The actor revealed that the total costs of both productions equate to RM500,000 (S$154,000).
“It doesn’t matter if you suffer by yourself, but artists and behind-the-scenes staff who work with me are innocent” he mentioned.
To make up for the money, Lai paid the six-digit debt out of his own money – to help his artists and thousands of behind-the-scenes staff who work hard to live.
“I have to pay the money out of my own pocket to others first,” he stated.
Supporters also shared their insights on this subject — saying that the actor should not censor the name of the media company to serve as a lesson to others, and may he continue to be strong despite the current difficulty.
Jaspers Lai reminded everyone to cherish all of their efforts because behind every production is the hard work of the artists and staff.
“Be responsible” he said.