Chinese-Canadian star caught in nude photo scandal
Pictures of Edison Chen frolicking with female celebrities sets off fireworks in China, writes Aileen McCabe from Shanghai.
Aileen McCabe, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Canadian-born pop icon Edison Chen is expected to face the music in Hong Kong later this week after "hiding out" in Vancouver over the Chinese New Year.
The singer-movie star returns just as the sex scandal that has been rocking the web across Asia and filling the tabloids in Hong Kong for the past two weeks finally broke into the mainstream Chinese media.
Shanghai Daily showed a sorry-faced Gillian Chung yesterday, apologizing for frolicking in the nude with Mr. Chen. She is one of a half-dozen female celebrities cavorting with Mr. Chen in the more than 400 pictures that have flooded the Internet. Apparently, there are hundreds more pictures that have yet to surface and several more starlets implicated.
View Larger ImageCanadian born actor Edison Chen, 28, the star of 25 motion pictures, issued a statement last week asking people to delete risqu photos of him cavorting with celebrities from their computers.
Half of the pop duo Twins, Ms. Chung was in full damage control mode as she sought to protect her "good-girl" image.
Like several of the other Cantonese popular music stars who were caught in the act with Mr. Chen, it's her little-girl image that keeps the fans coming back.
"I admit that I was naive and very silly, but I've grown up now," Ms. Chung told reporters.
The intimate pictures were apparently copied from Mr. Chen's pink laptop when he took it in to be repaired last summer. Once they started appearing on the Internet late in January, the 28-year-old star of 25 motion pictures conveniently left Hong Kong for a Lunar New Year visit with his Vancouver family and to see his girlfriend, Vincy Yeung, in the U.S. His managers insisted the trip was planned ahead of time.
Mr. Chen issued a video statement last week calling the photos "intentionally hurtful and malicious" and asked people to delete them from their computers.
It had little effect. According to bloggers, people are now "photo-shopping" the images to insert their own choice of women alongside the boyishly-handsome Mr. Chen.
On the web, the role of the Hong Kong police in the whole affair is starting to cause almost as much chatter as the photos.
The police have taken up the hunt for the perpetrators as if they were after a Triad kingpin. The laptop repair shop was raided, a "team" of investigators has been assigned to the case, more than 200 people involved in websites have been interviewed and there have been eight arrests so far.
But no one is actually sure whether a crime has been perpetrated, beyond swiping Mr. Chen's pictures.
Hong Kong legislative council member Leung Kwok Hung led 25 demonstrators in a protest outside police headquarters last week demanding to know what "crime" police were investigating, and whether possession of the embarrassing pictures was actually illegal. He didn't get an answer.