Canadian born Hong Kong Actor and Singer Edison Chen has been the center of the biggest scandal in Asia. In January 2008, 1,300 explicit photographs of himself and other celebrities surfaced in the internet. The scandal ruined Chen’s career and the other starlets involved such as Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan, Mandy Chen, Candice Chan, Rachel Ngan and Cecilia Cheung have endured public disgrace in this culturally conservative region. The incident created a huge public backlash that eventually made him retire indefinitely from the Hong Kong movie industry.
Chen admitted that he personally took all the pictures that flooded the internet but the photos have been taken 4 years ago. He had his laptop repaired in the computer shop and the technician copied all the pictures and it all started from there. The nude photos included Chen’s current girlfriend Vincy Yeung. Initially, the photos were said to be digitally manipulated but later on he publicly admitted and apologized about the incident and to all the women involved, and then announcing his retirement from the industry.
Immediately after the scandal broke out a series of cancellation of Chen’s product endorsements happened. Pepsi China, Standard Chartered Bank, Samsung, Levi’s and the Hong Kong Metro have all dropped and declined to renew their contracts with Chen. He also had a role as a sharp-dressed thug in “The Dark Knight” but his scenes were cut, instead he just appeared as a receptionist in that movie. He also was supposed to star in a Stephen Fung movie “Jump” but was again pulled-out because of the incident. His last movie “The Sniper” was finished by 2007 but the release was delayed due to the public backlash and Chen did not attend the Hong Kong premiere as there was a death threat for him, the attended the Singapore premiere though with lots of bodyguards.
After the Scandal
One year after the incident, Edison Chen openly talked about his side of the story in an interview with TalkAsia on CNN. He said that he faced death threats and a bullet was sent to a TV station in Hong Kong advising him to stay out of the limelight. Chen said that indeed, the photos were taken 4 years ago and they were all consensual. He also said that all the photos were deleted prior to bringing it to the computer shop for repair. He thought that by putting all the photos in the recycle in and emptying it would be the end of the issue and that was his mistake. The computer technician copied all the contents of his hard drive and was able to recover all the nude photos.
“I believed I was a victim. I believed that I was hurt by this a lot. I believed that…I knew that I had nothing to do with the spreading of these photos,” he told CNN in the exclusive interview.
He said it was a malicious act purposely intended to hurt him because there was no money or blackmail involved. The moment he realized that the pictures were everywhere he was stunned, shocked and in disbelief and asked how, why and when and where? He felt like everything was an endless nightmare and he thought about his family, his career, his girlfriend and all the women involved.
When asked if he believes that he has not done something wrong, he said “I can’t say I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve admitted that I was wrong, and I wouldn’t say sorry if I wasn’t wrong. But I also believe that at the same time that I wasn’t the perpetrator, and I had suffered a lot from this as well.” Chen said all he can offer now is his apologies to all the women who have been hurt and affected by the scandal, he hopes that one day he will be forgiven and for them to understand that this was never his intention.
Currently Chen spends most of his time in his native Canada. His career is still on-hold and said that he will just spend to charity and other good causes.
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