A pet brand erased Chen Bolin from a campaign he had already filmed

Chen Bolin is one of Taiwan's most recognisable actors, with a warm, untroubled image built over two decades of film and television. His close friend Ko Chen-tung had crossed into business as brand director of 帕奇特小屋, a pet supplement brand, and the two were booked together as its dual endorsement faces. The campaign was finished: the advertisements and the promotional material had already been shot when the trouble came.

In October 2025 a widening investigation into celebrities evading mandatory military service swept through the entertainment industry, and Chen Bolin was caught up in it. He withdrew from public view, and his commercial career stalled with him. For 帕奇特小屋 the calculation changed: the campaign sitting in its vault carried the face of an actor wrapped in scandal, and the brand reassessed the image risk of ever releasing it as planned.

The brand pulled every joint promotional photograph — one outlet said the shared images had simply 'evaporated' — and released the campaign with Ko Chen-tung alone. Chen Bolin's agency denied that anything had been cancelled: 'There is no such thing as being pulled or not pulled; the vendor had a set promotional strategy — it is simply the scheduled order in which the materials appear.' The losses went beyond the advertisements: the travel reality show WHAT A TRIP replaced him as host of its second season with Lin Po-hung.