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| Yang Mi’s Efforts to Bring Yu Menglong Into Her Agency Reportedly Failed |
After the passing of Chinese actor Alan Yu Menglong last month, reports continue to emerge about his difficult final years and the restrictions he allegedly faced under his management contract.
Now, new rumours claim that actress and producer Yang Mi had tried on multiple occasions to sign Yu into her company, Jaywalk Entertainment, but was stopped by his then-agency, Tianyu Media.
Yang Mi and Yu Menglong first worked together on the hit 2017 xianxia drama Eternal Love (Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms), where Yu Menglong played the gentle and loyal “Fourth Brother” Bai Zhen.
Off-screen, the two reportedly maintained a good friendship, and when the tragic news of Yu’s fall broke on September 11, Yang Mi shared a short but emotional post saying, “Fourth brother, may you rest peacefully in the other world.”
According to Chinese entertainment blogs and fan accounts, Yang Mi admired Yu Menglong’s work ethic and wanted to sign him under her label, Jaywalk Entertainment—a company known for its clean-image policies and stance against the industry’s “unspoken rules.”
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She reportedly made three separate attempts to bring Yu over, even offering a contract said to be double the value of his existing deal with Tianyu Media.
However, insiders claim Tianyu immediately renewed Yu’s contract, reportedly stretching his schedule until 2023.
Some online commentators have speculated that Tianyu Media held what’s been called a “fatal handle”—a clause in his original 2013 agreement giving the company priority renewal rights.
That means as long as they matched 80% of the current market rate, Yu Menglong would have been legally bound to stay.
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Sources also claimed that Yang Mi showed remarkable sincerity, allegedly raising Alan Yu’s profit split from 3:7 to 5:5, and promising two S-tier lead roles per year.
Her studio was said to have even tweaked scripts and adjusted filming schedules in anticipation of his signing.
Unfortunately, all those plans eventually fell apart because of contractual barriers.
An old report from Star EBC mentioned that when Yu participated in the reality show Shine! Super Brothers, Yang Mi personally visited him on set.
At the time, Yu Menglong reportedly told her, “I’m about to cry, it’s been really tough.”
Yang Mi later recalled the message he sent before her visit, which included a crying emoji—something she described as “heartbreaking.”
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Online discussions about Yu’s career and untimely death have reignited broader conversations about artist control and agency power in China’s entertainment scene.
Many fans now look back at Yang Mi’s attempts to sign him as a gesture of genuine concern—though neither she nor Tianyu Media has made any public statement addressing the renewed rumours.