Billionaire claiming he paid $4.5 million to marry actress wants it back after romance died

A Chinese billionaire has launched a legal battle against his famous former fiancée in a bid to get a refund on the huge dowry he allegedly paid to her parents.

Justin Sun, the ridiculously wealthy founder of blockchain company Tron, claims that actress Jing Tian left him high and dry after he stumped up the seven-figure sum.

The 36-year-old is now reportedly suing his would-be wife in the hopes of reclaiming the cash that he gave to her mother and father in return for receiving her hand in marriage.

Sun - who boasts a net worth of $8.5billion, according to Forbes - wants his money back after his relationship with the screen star ended in tatters.

He claims that he was forced to call off their engagement after he had paid Tian's parents a $4.5million 'bride fee', due to a row over an alleged $50million surrogacy demand that she made.

Given the social statuses and bank balances of those involved, this is shaping up to be a seriously juicy scandal.

According to Sun and his hotshot lawyer Zhang Qihuai, he financially compensated the family of Tian under the guise that they would later get hitched.

"We dated with marriage in mind," the cryptocurrency tycoon told the Wall Street Journal in a short statement.

However, the couple are said to have hit a major rough patch when they began planning to welcome a child together with the help of a US surrogate.

Sun said the 'other party', while seemingly referencing Tian, demanded $50million to go ahead with the plans - and after he refused to hand this money over, he alleges that she cut contact.

The businessman said he consulted Anthropic's AI tool Claude about the surrogacy payment and claimed it encouraged him not to comply.

"The engagement could no longer proceed,"Sun told the Journal, while his lawyer Qihuai claimed that a court has given the lawsuit against his ex the green light to proceed.

Tian is a Chinese actress who has appeared in a number of big films, including The Warring States, Special ID, Police Story 2013 and the 2016 film The Great Wall, which she starred in alongside Matt Damon.

Although she has not addressed Sun's claims outright, the 38-year-old did seemingly react to reports about the lawsuit.

She shared a social media post referencing her 'poor judgment in men and insufficient wisdom', before brutally adding that she 'would never trade love or her soul for money', according to The South China Morning Post.

"Time will prove everything," Tian said, while going on to say she 'believes in the law' and that 'justice and fairness will ultimately prevail'.

Adding further fuel to the fire, Sun shared what appeared to be his version of events in a post on X that was titled 'My Girlfriend Jing Tian', before massively backtracking.

It detailed how he had a longstanding crush on the star prior to meeting her, his experience of a date they had at a cinema he hired out and the payment made to her parents, among other anecdotes.

But Sun wrote at the bottom of the post: "This article is entirely fictional; any resemblance to actual events or persons is purely coincidental."

The crypto king previously went viral in 2024 after splashing $6.2m (£4.88m) on Maurizio Cattelan's infamous banana artwork, only to eat the piece of fruit shortly afterwards.