AI idol’s pregnancy storyline triggers backlash in China
BABYQUEEN’s creators later said the fictional maternity leave was a way to remove Mity from the active lineup.
An AI-generated Chinese girl group drew a backlash after presenting one virtual member’s removal from its active lineup as a pregnancy and maternity leave. BABYQUEEN announced on Oct. 12 that Mity would suspend activities to prepare for childbirth, then published a follow-up statement in her voice the next day saying she was pregnant and stepping away from public life.
The announcement, posted on the group’s official Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, account, was accompanied by a selfie of Mity in pink pajamas in bed, Sixth Tone reported. It said she would halt group and individual variety-show appearances and stage performances after discussions with the team, citing the need to protect her health during pregnancy and prepare for childbirth. It also asked followers not to speculate about her private life.
Mity and every other BABYQUEEN member are AI-generated, with no physical bodies. The group is styled after South Korean K-pop acts and began its Xiaohongshu account on Sept. 7. Its creators control the characters’ appearance and public personas.
The use of a real-world maternity narrative for a fictional idol brought disbelief, jokes and criticism that it turned women’s reproductive health into entertainment. One widely shared response said that using pregnancy and childbirth as a marketing hook trivialized real women’s reproductive experiences. Others questioned why a virtual character would require maternity leave, while some joked that the creators had run out of computing resources.
The story received more than 78 million views on Weibo by Oct. 20, according to the South China Morning Post. Earlier in the viral cycle, it had received more than 6 million views. The reaction prompted a wider debate over how far creators can go in giving digital personas humanlike identities and life stories.
BABYQUEEN’s creators later acknowledged that the pregnancy plot was a device for writing Mity out of the active lineup. In a since-deleted post, they said managing multiple AI personalities had become overwhelming. They described themselves as students and K-pop fans, said the project began as a hobby and had earned no income, and said they had faced personal attacks and online harassment.
The announcement coincided with a teaser for a new song featuring the four remaining members, encouraging speculation that the story was intended to attract attention to the music. The creators chose the pregnancy narrative rather than simply announcing a hiatus or reducing the number of active members.
BABYPVSSY Entertainment suggested Mity could next pursue acting or become a maternity and infant content creator. The episode unfolded as AI girl-group accounts proliferated on Chinese social media, where virtual idols commonly use social accounts to share glimpses of their daily lives and promote brands.