Singer-actor Edison Chen Koon-hei has told how he had to hide in the boots of taxis at the peak of last year's celebrity sex-photos scandal, which resulted in his exile from Hong Kong show-business circles and left him facing death threats.
He also said he had lived in total darkness for five days and had 'my drapes closed' after pictures of him having sex with a string of top female stars appeared on the internet.
Chen for the first time gives his side of the story in an interview with Anjali Rao on CNN's Talk Asia, to be aired here tomorrow night.
'I was afraid to go anywhere,' he told the interviewer. 'I was travelling around when I was still in Hong Kong in trunks of taxis, literally, just to get to places. I had to be in the trunk for 15 minutes. I didn't even know if I had enough oxygen to be honest with you. Even when I had left Asia and I had [gone] to Canada and America, it took me three months to really get out of the shell that I had put myself in. I mean, I was in darkness for five days. I had my drapes closed and I didn't even want to go anywhere.'
The pop star had been one of the most promising stars in the Asian market before he fell into disgrace. He returned to Hong Kong last week after staying for months in Canada and the United States.
Earlier, two of the women involved in the scandal, Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi and Gillian Chung Yan-tung, revealed their stories in separate Hong Kong TV interviews. Cheung criticised Chen for not contacting her after the scandal broke and not having apologised to her in person, while Chung said the scandal had driven her to the brink of suicide.