Bai Ling is a Chinese American actress, born in Chengdu, China during the Cultural Revolution. Her father was a music teacher, and her mother was a stage actress and dancer. Her parents were treated cruelly due to their careers, and soon after her birth, Bai moved to her grandmother’s residence elsewhere in Sichuan. She spent three-years as a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army in Tibet from the age of 14. Her main activity there was to entertain with musical theatre.

As she grew up, Ling’s rebelliousness caused friction with the Chinese government. She was accused of insubordination for using tobacco and alcohol, was briefly hospitalized for depression by the end of her army service, and partook in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. She temporarily came to New York in 1991 to attend New York University’s film department as a visiting scholar, but later obtained a special visa that allowed her to remain in the United States until she became a citizen in 1999.

Bai has appeared in Red Corner, The Gene Generation, Man About Town, Edmond, Entourage, Lords of Dogtown, She Hate Me, The Beautiful Country, My Baby’s Daddy, Jake 2.0, The Extreme Team, Storm Watch, Face, The Breed and Row Your Boat.

Bai played Senator Bana Breemu in Star Wars: Episode III but her role was cut during editing. She claimed that this was because of her posing nude for the June 2005 issue of Playboy magazine, whose appearance on newstands coincided with the movie’s May 2005 release, but director George Lucas denied this, stating that the cut had been made more than a year earlier.

In 2005 Ling VH1 program called But Can They Sing?, a show in which celebrities sang - one being voted off the show each week. Bai Ling was most famous for her risquee and raunchy get-ups. She was eliminated just before the grand finale but was invited back on the final week for a special performance of Divinyls’ ‘I Touch Myself.’ She became known for her flamboyancy and publicity-chasing outfits, often featured on the website Go Fug Yourself.

“Bai Ling” in Chinese means “White Spirit/Light”.