Actress Reveals Her Surprising Past With Two Of K-Pop’s Biggest Agencies

If things had gone differently, a popular actress might have debuted as a “Big 3” idol instead.

Li Yi Tong (also known as Shirley) is a Chinese actress and singer. One of her best-known roles is Wan Mei, an assassin in the 2018 Chinese television series Bloody Romance. Most recently, she starred as Song Yimeng/Song Xiaoyu in the 2025 historical romance television series A Dream Within a Dream.

Recently, Li revealed that she was scouted by two K-Pop agencies long before she decided she wanted to have a job in the entertainment industry. As a teen studying at Shenzhen Art School, she was approached by a scout on campus, who wanted her to sign a ten-year contract with SM Entertainment. The scout reportedly told Li that SM Entertainment needed a Chinese member for The Grace. Both Li and her mother were nonplussed by the offer. Her mother thought it was a scam, and the idea of becoming a trainee overseas didn’t appeal to Li, who had “no dream to enter showbiz.” 

SM Entertainment reached out to her again in 2010, five years after The Grace’s debut, to make another offer that Li rejected. She was more interested in her schooling at the time.

Li then crossed paths with a JYP Entertainment scout four or five years later, when she was a student at the Beijing Dance Academy. As fate would have it, it was the exact same scout, and Li realized that the original offer the scout had made to her wasn’t a scam after all.

Li, who doesn’t regret turning down the offers, said, “Every person, every step, there’s a plan and purpose. All good choices.” She made her acting debut in 2016, with a leading role in the period fantasy web series Demon Girl.