{"id":731637,"date":"2026-05-11T15:54:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/731637\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:54:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:54:29","slug":"how-billionaire-wesley-edens-chinese-divorcee-hooked-up-before-alleged-blackmail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/731637\/","title":{"rendered":"How billionaire Wesley Edens, Chinese divorcee hooked up before alleged blackmail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The toxic tryst between a <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/10\/us-news\/bucks-owner-wesley-edens-blackmailed-after-fling-with-chinese-divorcee-feds\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chinese divorcee and the billionaire Milwaukee Bucks owner <\/a>allegedly began when she slid into his DMs on LinkedIn, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>Changli \u201cSophia\u201d Luo, 46, originally reached out to the recently-divorced Wesley Edens, the 64-year-old Wall Street financier, via the social media platform for professionals in 2022, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>Changli \u201cSophia\u201d Luo originally contacted the billionaire via LinkedIn. One World Initiative<\/p>\n<p>At first, the messages were professional and appeared to be under the guise of professional networking or philanthropy,<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/11\/sports\/mallory-edens-returns-to-nba-draft-lottery-as-dad-victim-of-alleged-1b-blackmail-plot\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> according to the lawsuit.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Eventually, they became more personal, with Edens telling Luo how fun it was to own a sports team, having bought majority stakes not only in the Bucks, but also in English Premier League soccer club Aston Villa.<\/p>\n<p>Edens first met Luo face-to-face in 2023. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Luo, an entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit One World Initiative Advocacy, first met Edens face-to-face the following year, before the pair started a brief relationship, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/us-news\/law\/fortress-co-founder-allegedly-extorted-by-sexual-partner-ee9d6666?st=tcKUZX&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the Wall Street Journal first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On their third encounter, the pair had sex at Luo\u2019s Manhattan apartment, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>But following the steamy meeting in June 2023, her behavior changed dramatically, and she threatened to release intimate pictures and videos of him unless he paid up, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>Edens initially agreed to pay Luo $6.5 million, including $1 million up front, as part of the alleged shakedown.<\/p>\n<p>Luo demanded up to $1.2 billion of the Bucks owner\u2019s estimated $2.5 billion net worth. Sports Illustrated via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>But following the settlement, when Luo found out she had HPV, a sexually transmitted infection that can lead to cancer, her lawyer claimed \u2014 and she blamed Edens and looked to renegotiate the deal.<\/p>\n<p>She demanded up to a staggering $1.215 billion, almost half of Edens\u2019 estimated $2.5 billion net worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The toxic tryst between a Chinese divorcee and the billionaire Milwaukee Bucks owner allegedly began when she slid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,90725,103,16083,102,121,3871,6,4486,41961],"class_list":{"0":"post-731637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blackmail","10":"tag-bucks","11":"tag-extortion","12":"tag-milwaukee","13":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","14":"tag-milwaukeebucks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-wes-edens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116556756665279345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}