Shock turned to utter disgust for fans of local actress Rebecca Lim who announced a decision to retire at the prime of her career — before later declaring it was all false.
Why would she do that you may ask? Welp, as a marketing stunt to promote insurance company NTUC Income’s Retirement Plan. Yeah, whodathunk that it would all blow up in her face?
The popular 29-year-old MediaCorp artist, who starred in Fighting Spiders, The Pupil, Unriddle 2 and more, delivered a devastating blow to her fans last Friday when she announced her retirement for a little change in her life.
Amidst all the sadness and well wishes, she dropped a video on her Facebook page a few hours later essentially saying “Y’all been ripped off”, while simultaneously hyping up NTUC Income’s insurance plan.
“Nope, I’m not leaving my job; I love it too much,” she beams. “I have, however, signed a retirement plan with NTUC Income — and it’s a relief to know that I’m saving a little each day for my future so that I won’t have to worry when I eventually do retire.” Honestly, she doesn’t even look or sound convinced by her own words.
Posted by Rebecca Lim 林慧玲 on Friday, 12 February 2016
Clearly enraged by the misleading narrative, netizens blew up across her social media accounts, slamming her and her stunt on Instagram and Facebook. Raised the issue of retirement planning she has, but too bad she had to rely on a cheap stunt to do so.
In response to the warranted displeasure over the ploy, NTUC Income’s chief marketing officer stated that they did not mean to mislead anyone. “We regret upsetting anyone over the weekend,” said NTUC Income’s Marcus Chew to The Straits Times. “Our intention for the post was really to draw attention to retirement planning, and retiring as a journey.”
Lim has since taken down the caption from her original Instagram post, and apologised over the misunderstanding in a media conference called on Friday night. Despite all the flak, however, she says that she wouldn’t have done things differently to reach young people.
With all the hullabaloo over the stunt, it might seem that she’ll retire for real this time. But probably not. According to her, she doesn’t care what people say about her because she knows who she is, who she can be, and what she’s going to be. Before driving off in a sweet Mercedes-Benz.
