Award-winning Chinese actress Mao Xiaotong may be famous for her sweet and cute appearance, but she has a tough streak that has seen her walk away from toxic relationships with her father and ex-boyfriend.
Mao, 37, has won multiple awards including the Magnolia Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Huading Award for Best Actress in Contemporary Drama.
She is widely recognised for playing independent and innocent female characters in Chinese television dramas, such as Nothing but Thirty and Light Beyond the Reed.
Her look is so famously pure that some compared her with memes featuring cute kittens.
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In contrast, she has decisive characteristics that helped her break up toxic relationships.
Mao was born prematurely in 1988 in northern China’s Tianjin municipality, when her mother accidentally stretched her belly while running a stall during pregnancy.
Mao’s father, an alcoholic gambler, treated her badly because she was not a boy.