Hong Kong woman at centre of sex scandal involving Auckland mayor

A woman born and raised in Hong Kong is at the centre of a high-profile political sex scandal that threatens to bring down the mayor of Auckland.

Bevan Chuang Ka-yan, 32, revealed her illicit two-year affair with Auckland Mayor Len Brown, 57, days after he was re-elected for a second term.

The pair met at a council function when Chuang was on the Ethnic Peoples Advisory Panel. An aspiring politician, Chuang studied at Chinese International School until 1996, when she emigrated with family members to New Zealand.

Chuang, who is currently in hiding, said she felt regret about making the revelations and the "hurt and pain" that the saga had caused because her own family had been devastated by her father's infidelity. She said she understood how traumatic the situation would be for Brown's wife and three children.

On a radio show earlier, Chuang spoke candidly about being a mistress: "I don't need to be someone's toy. In Asian countries, you have a lot of married men who go and find a mistress but they go and spend heaps of money on them. Kiwi men don't do that. I'm not getting any financial gain out of this either.

"It is one of those things where my mum said to me … 'If you want to be someone's mistress, there has to be something out of it - either love or money or fame, some sort of status or travel.'