Netizens has recently slammed iQiyi for its response to the recent voting controversy, when Cecilia Liu suddenly lost her place as one of recipients of the Most Beloved Female Character of the Year at the Scream Night 2025.
The platform recently released a statement, saying that the mistake was made “due to oversight,” and that Cecilia’s character Dongfang Huai Zhu from “Love in Pavilion” should have won based on the results that was released on 21 November.
“We sincerely apologise for the impact caused by this issue. We will be more rigorous in our future work,” the statement added.
Although iQiyi issued an apology, the reason given instantly ignited the anger of netizens.
One netizen complained, “Now even award ceremonies can use the ‘oversight’ excuse? It’s like they don’t care about the actors and the audience at all.”
Another posted, “It seems that changing awards at the last minute has become a common practice for some award ceremonies in the mainland entertainment industry, repeatedly eroding the already dwindling credibility of award ceremonies.”
Others even demanded that iQiyi compensate them, seeing that the category is awarded based on paid votes.
The whole issue sparked after Cecilia’s character in the series was announced as the three winners of the aforementioned category alongside Yang Mi’s Ning Xiuxiu (“This Thriving Land”) and Li Qin’s Fu Yixiao from “Fated Hearts”.
However, on the day of the iQiyi Scream Night itself, the voting results were apparently changed at the last minute, with Bai Lu winning and Cecilia’s name was no longer in the top three.
