She was married to the composer Li Jinguang (), and they later divorced in 1950. She stayed in China after 1949 and continued performing in theater. During the Cultural Revolution, because Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four did not want people to know anything about Bai's song and film history in Shanghai the 1930s and 1940s, many other people of the same generation as Bai were imprisoned. Bai, a singer and actress in the 1930s and 1940s, was also imprisoned and subjected to persecution and abuse. She officially retired in 1979.