Chapter 959: Chapter 962

After returning from the Fletcher Residence, it was almost New Year’s. Meanwhile, the news of Mark’s ‘passing’ was spreading throughout the country, and it made a huge impact on the entertainment industry.

In the final three hours before the voting period of ‘Light of Cethos’ closed, someone’s votes exceeded Michael’s by several thousands and pushed him to second place in the ‘Best Artist’ category.

Some time ago, Sophia and Michael had been travelling abroad and were busy getting it on.

If making love for others was rolling in the hay, then instead of rolling, Michael would be doing somersaults. What was more, he never said no to Sophia’s ‘requests’.

With Sophia’s busy schedule, it was rare that she could even take time out to deal with work, let alone pay attention to that competition. Thinking that Michael had the upper hand, she never realized that someone else was catching up to him.

In the final three hours, Sophia saw someone named ‘Nicholai Gates’ from second place overtake Michael and bagged the top spot of the Best Artist category. Meanwhile, Michael lost by only a few hundred votes and came in second.

She was baffled.

In fact, Nicholai Gates was a popular pretty boy many years ago. His real name was Nicholas Yates, and he was almost thirty. He was getting older, and the audience all got bored of him. Meanwhile, there were many new, young and fresh faces making their debuts. He was losing popularity, so he changed his name and went through a transformation. In a few years, he sharpened his acting skills and became a hunk. He also starred in a few blockbuster movies and became an example of an impressive transformation.

Not only that, but it was also reported this year that he was married and had a child who was now four years old. He even appeared on the reality show named ‘Where Are We Going, Dad?’ and attracted countless fans. As such, his popularity exceeded Michael’s.

Once the list was confirmed, the internet was full of negative comments about Michael.

‘The incompetence of the actor who faked his death is finally exposed without his grandfather around.’

‘Taylor Murray is only mediocre at best. I told you his acting skills aren’t good at all, and he’s not attractive anymore. It’s a wonder that he still received that many votes. I’m just waiting for ‘The Winter Breakthrough’ to flop.’

‘What is this sleazy old man still doing acting like an idol? He’s old news, and he’s now endorsing stainless steel basins, how low! Hurry and retire already, and stop hurting my eyes!’

‘He was probably just making Mark Fletcher happy. He’s over thirty and he’s still wearing makeup and entertaining his grandfather, how disgusting! Now that Mark Fletcher is dead, the Fletcher Family will never promote him anymore because they have long known that he’s not that great. ‘The Winter Breakthrough’ may not even be released! Even Scarlett divorced him a long time ago. Now all he has left is a miserable life and stainless steel basin endorsements.’

‘I’ve seen him in real life, and he’s ugly as h*ll. Even if he was twenty years younger, he’d still be ugly. I really can’t comprehend how he became a national idol.’

…Screw you, you’re ugly! Your whole family’s ugly!

It was just a couple days before the new year, and Sophia was so infuriated that she jumped out of her bed in the middle of the night to look for her computer. She wanted to fight those haters!How can I let you slander my beloved idol?

In fact, she was so angry that she wasn’t even interested when Michael tried to fool around with her.

At that moment, she was sitting in front of the computer. Michael sulked while he watched Sophia having a virtual catfight with the haters, and he snuck a glance at the vicious comments.

Evidently, it was as if he had lost his protective shield since Mark’s ‘passing’. All the dirt on him seemed to have popped up, including groundless accusations that he bedded a male model from years ago.

It was as if the haters had all come to life as soon as Mark was not around to protect him and wanted to punish him to death.

Now that Mark was gone, Michael’s protective shield was gone along with him. He was not included in the Fletcher Family’s genealogy record book until he was in his thirties. On top of that, after he finally managed to marry into a rich family—to Miss Scarlett Mitchell a.k.a Sophia, he was still dumped in the end. Subsequently, he resolved to endorse stainless steel basins.

He was the epitome of a middle-aged, sleazy, washed-up celebrity.

At that moment, Michael also felt that Taylor Murray was very pitiful.

Not only that, but he also fooled around with numerous female celebrities that led to one of the female celebrities dying from miscarriage. During filming, he used special effects makeup, and he was simply bad at acting. If his acting was good, it was because he used a stand-in actor. Moreover, the claims that he performed all his own stunts were accused to be fake. Even his gender was fake, and he was actually a woman. In short, everything about him was fake.

After Sophia shot down the slanders of Michael’s acting skills and using a stand-in actor, she shot down rumours about his involvement with male models and female celebrities, box office fraud, and paedophilia. After that, a wave of false rumors about his gender surged again. Everyone was talking about Michael like they personally knew him!

At this moment, Sophia was exhausted.

She went from using her official account and speaking respectfully, to creating new accounts and talking vulgarly. In the end, she decided to quit when she got tired.

Pulling her onto his lap, he turned off the computer and comforted her, ”That’s enough, online arguments are boring anyway. We should go to sleep. It’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow!”

Sophia was so frustrated that her dark eye circles were starting to appear. She wrapped her arms around Michael’s neck. “Maybe you should skip the award ceremony.”

After the news of Mark’s passing, everyone was bullying him thinking that he’d lost his protection. Things could get worse if he attended the ceremony!

How could she tolerate anyone bullying her idol?

Michael kissed the back of her hand. “It’s fine. I’ve been in the industry for more than ten years, and there’s nothing I haven’t faced. Besides, if they want to insult me, they will. You can’t control them.”

Sophia was sullen for the rest of the night. The next day, Maddie came to apologize. This contest was organized by their company in collaboration with dozens of other media agencies, and she had invited Michael to the award ceremony. She did not expect that this would happen, and now she was embarrassed.

“I think maybe Taylor should skip the ceremony this time round and wait for things to die down.”

In fact, it didn’t matter to Michael whether he attended or not as it all depended on Sophia.

Sophia refused and snickered, “No, he should go. Why shouldn’t he?”

She thought this was an extensive scandal that was organized and well thought-out as it even came all at once. Someone must be orchestrating all this.

Besides, Michael had been a hit for many years, and other celebrities could never reach his level. When he finally ‘died’, they were relieved. However, he had returned and was more popular than ever. As soon as he came back, ‘The National Treasury Action’ was released and it was a box office success and won many awards. Then, he immediately started filming ‘The Winter Breakthrough’, which was also a huge production.

In addition, he was set to film ‘Doctor Invincible 2’ and a whole series of Hollywood superhero movies. It was said that he had signed a contract for four movies, which caused a lot of jealousy among the male actors.

How could they not hate him?

However, he used to have Mark as a shield, so they did not dare to be reckless. Now that Mark had ‘died’, they thought Michael no longer had protection and that it wouldn’t be long before he lost his popularity. So, they revealed their true colors.

It looked like his attendance at this award ceremony would be absolutely necessary.