Messy celebrity divorce news sells papers, and no one knows that better than actress Alyssa Chia (賈靜雯) and ex-husband Sun Chih-hao (孫志浩). The former couple-turned-enemies continue to end up on the front pages of gossip rags because of an ongoing child custody battle that is getting uglier and uglier as time goes by.
It all began with a phone call from an anonymous informer to the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Monday last week. The informant told the paper the newly divorced Sun was going to see a movie with a 28-year-old beauty consultant named Kelly Chen (陳凱莉) and provided detailed tips such as “their seats are on row E. You can get good photos from row F.”
Pictures of Sun and Chen — who quickly earned the sobriquet of D-cup nurse, (D奶小護士) (that of course refers to her supposed bra size) — exiting the movie theater were everywhere the next day.
Gossip observers theorize that since Chia and Sun are soon due to appear in court for custody of “Sister Wutong”(梧桐妹), as the press refers to their daughter, someone wants to make Sun appear guilty of neglecting the child while having a good time with women.
Chia, meanwhile, has cultivated an angelic public persona by attending four charity events over the past couple of months.
Needless to say, the actress rigorously denied the conspiracy theory when the media asked if she was behind the alleged setup.
Her former husband, however, is not an adversary to be underestimated. Sun wasted no time in retaliating through his lawyer Chang Nai-liang (張迺良), who told the press that Chia had never done charity work during her marriage to his client.
“She seems to really like doing charity work now. It would be great if she can keep it up,” Chang was quoted as saying in a sarcastic tone.
In music-related news, Three Little Men (三小男人), a band comprised of veteran musicians Bobby Chen (陳昇), Phil Chang (張宇) and Huang Pin-yuan (黃品源), are scheduled to perform concerts in Kaohsiung and Taichung in October as the coda to the group’s year-long world tour.
Sound familiar? Yes, you guessed right. Three Little Men are a slightly newer and smaller version of Super Band (縱貫線), which had Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑), Emil Chou (周華健), Jonathan Lee (李宗盛) and Chang Cheng-yue (張震嶽) in its lineup. The Three Little Men have repeatedly said they aren’t in it for the money, even though Super Band is a carefully calculated business venture that grossed NT$4.3 billion, with each of the performers pulling in NT$100 million for the 58 shows they did in one year.
The Three Little Men show is slightly less ambitious when it comes to the serious business of making dough. Apple Daily estimates the band will merely pull in NT$200 million for its 10-show tour of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and the US.
When asked why they don’t add more gigs, both Bobby Chen and Huang laughed and said: “We aren’t doing this for the money.”
Last, but certainly not least, Hong Kong entertainment insider Tu Hui-tung (杜惠東) has irked fans of Anita Mui (梅艷芳) with a new book that exposes the skeletons hidden in the late pop diva’s closet. Starry Stars (繁星點點) includes details on Mui’s little-known affair with a triad boss, and fans are demanding that the publisher remove the book from the shelves.
Jackie Chan (成龍) also plays a starring role in Tu’s book, which says the aging action hero was the male lead in a bushel of pornographic movies under the stage name Chen Yuan-long (陳元龍) in the 1970s. According to Tu’s book, Chan made porn films to pay off his gambling debts.
Responding to the criticism, To said he’s friends with the stars he’s exposing and that everything he wrote was true. If not, “Ask someone to shoot me,” he said.
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