Instagram helped bring Jay Chou and Mayday’s Ashin closer together

After wrapping up his Shanghai concert last Sunday (Oct 20), Taiwanese multi-hyphenate Jay Chou sat down with local media for an interview session, where he shared more about his friendship with Mayday’s Ashin, as well as how Instagram has helped him to connect with his fellow celebrities.

In response to a question about his friendship with Ashin, Jay brought up an incident that had happened during the Golden Melody Awards in 2009. As he could not make it to the awards ceremony, Jay’s good friend, musician Gary Yang, went up on stage to collect Jay’s awards - Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance - for him instead. However, many netizens were displeased that Jay did not attend the awards ceremony, criticising him for being “disrespectful”.

Later that night, Ashin posted a long note in defence of Jay, imploring netizens to “please don’t snatch away his wings”. Jay shared that at that time, he wasn’t really close with Ashin, and the latter's post in support of him was something that had really touched Jay’s heart.

“From that moment on, I’ve always kept this issue close to me,” Jay shared. The 40-year-old then went on to reveal that he has always been introverted, and that his close friends are all people that he has known for over 10 years.

“I rarely come into contact with my celebrity friends. It’s usually [singer] Will Liu, or the friends whom I’ve known for over ten years; I rarely confide in other people,” he confessed.

However, Instagram has changed his social life completely. Jay only created his Instagram account in August 2017, but he has quickly grown to be quite the power user, posting numerous times a week and replying to comments. The comments sections on his Instagram page are usually peppered with remarks from fellow celebrities and fans alike.

In fact, it was Instagram that helped to bring Jay and Ashin even closer together. In March this year, the duo had posted screenshots of an Instagram direct message conversation they had with each other. Hilariously, Jay couldn’t figure out if the ‘Ashin’ that was commenting on his posts was the real deal or just an impersonator.

After that incident, the duo started texting each other more regularly, conversing until the wee hours of the morning.

“Whenever I compose my songs, I’d always be very confident of my own works. I said, ‘This will definitely hit it big if I were to collaborate with Ashin, it’ll definitely be very interesting and fun’, so I texted him,” Jay said. He had revealed earlier that their collaboration for Jay’s newest song, ‘Won’t Cry’, was a spur-of-the-moment idea.

Laughing, Jay then added that keeping the news of their collaboration a secret was “like being pregnant”.

“It's just like when you’re pregnant, but you have yet to pass the first trimester, so you can’t tell anyone,” he exclaimed, sharing that even their celebrity pals like Jam Hsiao and JJ Lin were kept in the dark.

Photos: PBE Media, Jay Chou/Instagram

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