1st September 2026 – (Hong Kong) Last year’s Miss Hong Kong runner-up Angela Stanton has been caught in a cross-border labour row after a Shenzhen makeup studio boasted on social media that it styled her backstage at the pageant final.
Angela Stanton attended the 30th August final to present an award to the new winner. The Shenzhen firm Yi Meng Styling later posted on RedNote that it had worked backstage at the contest, describing an “immersive backstage shift” and sharing clips of TVB artists on site. Stanton commented on the post, thanking the stylist for “the perfect closing chapter” to her Miss Hong Kong experience.
Online users assumed Television Broadcasts Limited had hired the team centrally. Yi Meng Styling replied that Stanton had booked it privately, adding that it had also handled her wedding makeup. Commenters then asked whether the mainland stylists held Hong Kong work visas.
The company markets itself as a Shenzhen wedding makeup specialist serving clients nationwide and has about 23,000 followers. When a reporter contacted it on WeChat about Hong Kong wedding rates and visa requirements, it sent a price list from 2,500 to 26,880 yuan and said a visa was “best”. Asked whether services could proceed without one, it said there was risk and suggested the reporter could help carry luggage through the border.
TVB said the stylist mentioned online was a long-standing friend of Stanton who attended only in a personal capacity and applied makeup voluntarily out of friendship, with no payment or commercial engagement involved.
The Immigration Department said visitors may not take up any employment in Hong Kong without the director’s approval, whether paid or unpaid, nor run or join a business. Offenders face fines of up to HK$50,000 and two years’ imprisonment. It said reports of immigration breaches are handled seriously and swiftly. From 2025 to the end of July 2026, sting operations targeting suspected illegal labour in makeup, renovation, photography, tour guiding and cross-border shopping led to 64 arrests of workers and four employers or abettors.
Stanton, 27, is of Chinese and British heritage with about 230,000 RedNote followers. An IB top scorer, she graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honours in economics. She has said she is weighing career options and job interviews and is widely seen as unlikely to renew her TVB contract. She plans to marry her boyfriend in Hainan in December.