Nicole Kidman Slammed For Skipping Quarantine In Hong Kong
Nicole Kidman has tarnished her reputation in Hong Kong after skipping the country’s strict COVID-19 quarantine to shoot her Amazon series, Expats, while there.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kidman took a private jet from Sydney to Hong Kong last Thursday (August 12) and was exempted from the city’s seven-day hotel quarantine for vaccinated people arriving from Australia, despite Sydney going into lockdown following a surge in Delta variant cases. As of Friday, vaccinated people arriving from Australia will have to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days.
Under mounting public pressure, Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau had to explain why Kidman and other film crew received preferential treatment, granting exemption “to carry out designated professional work.”
Kidman’s special treatment has been covered in the city’s tabloids, having seen her out shopping in Hong Kong in the last week.
On social media, the reaction to Kidman not quarantining has been negative. “Dear #HongKong friends and family, While you are locked into a hotel room for three weeks, how does it feel to know that if you are from Hollywood, you are exempt from the barbaric quarantine rules HK residents are subjected to?” wrote journalist Deborah Kan on Twitter.
Dear #HongKong friends and family, While you are locked into a hotel room for three weeks, how does it feel to know that if you are from Hollywood, you are exempt from the barbaric quarantine rules HK residents are subjected to?https://t.co/ty4OW1A303
— Deborah Kan (@debkhk) August 19, 2021
“It’s bad enough that Amazon is backing two whole shows about the glam lives of HK expats while many HKers are trying to flee a crackdown. Now add quarantine exceptionalism for Nicole Kidman, who apparently helps “maintain” the HK economy,” wrote reporter Mary Hui.
It’s bad enough that Amazon is backing two whole shows about the glam lives of HK expats while many HKers are trying to flee a crackdown. Now add quarantine exceptionalism for Nicole Kidman, who apparently helps "maintain" the HK economy. w/ @Jane_Li911: https://t.co/VmLhd70Fkg
— Mary Hui (@maryhui) August 19, 2021
This isn’t the first quarantine controversy that Kidman has caused. Last June, the actress and her husband, Keith Urban, were exempted by the Australian state of New South Wales’ hotel quarantine in favor of home quarantine after they flew into Sydney from the U.S. ahead of production of the miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers.
Expats stars and is executive produced by 54-year-old Kidman, based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s book The Expatriates, about a group of close-knit wealthy women expatriates in Hong Kong.
