Asia's entertainment bosses seem to require celebrity debutantes and starlets to appear chaste and remain single (at least in public) for as long as possible to maximize their moneymaking potential. With the former, as the recent Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex-photo scandal demonstrated, displays of "naughty" - or human - behavior are enough to destroy a music career or kill a toothpaste endorsement. Those who tie the knot can expect to meet the same fate, which is probably why many members of the celebrity firmament marry into money.
And so it is, with the Chen debacle cooling down, gossip rags scramble to dig up juicy gossip that compares to the former Canto-pop star's sensational misdemeanors. Apple revisited a rumor spread last year that aging "national treasure" and model Lin Chih-lin (林志玲) is engaged to Scott Qiu (邱士楷), the son of a toilet magnet reputedly worth NT$3.5 billion.
An online poll conducted by Yahoo and reported in Apple asked the earth-shattering question: Would Lin's career suffer if she got married? Of the roughly 17,000 respondents, 60.3 percent said it would. But like other models before her, Lin probably isn't too concerned because the money she could marry into (she was allegedly courted by Terry Gou, 郭台銘, one of Taiwan's richest men) would more than compensate for the loss of strut time.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In other faux-wedding news, Apple and the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported that Hong Kong actor/singer Leon Lee (黎明) and supermodel Gaile Lai (樂基兒) spent NT$4 million (Apple) or NT$40 million (Liberty Times) on a wedding in the Maldives - a rumor the pair promptly denied upon returning to Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Cecilia Cheung's (張柏芝) marriage to Nicolas Tse (謝霆鋒) seems to be stabilizing after the Chen affair. The Liberty Times reported last week that Tse's parents are willing to overlook Cheung's erotic photos in the interest of their young grandson and family harmony.
A judge threw out "entertainer" Lu Ching's (盧靚) sexual harassment lawsuit against comedian and TV personality Peng Chia-chia (澎恰恰). Readers of Pop Stop will remember that Peng learned the hard way that masturbating in front of the camera might have unintended consequences. At the time, August 2003, he was secretly filmed "bashing the bishop" by Lu, who recorded the action to "protect" herself from the onanist's sexual advances. Peng, however, claimed Lu was out to blackmail him to the tune of NT$44.7 million, according to an Apple Daily report.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
A judge eventually found in favor of Peng and handed Lu a three-year jail sentence, which was reduced to two years on appeal. She began serving her time last December.
In related news, it seems that Brazilian-Japanese model Akemi (樂明美) has a new beau, a Brazilian model named Henderson. The couple were captured on film after taking in a movie, the Liberty Times reported. Clearly, however, the intrepid paparazzi weren't using a long enough telephoto lens when they caught Henderson and Akemi playing tonsil hockey outside of the movie theater. In a gesture that would make Sean Penn proud, Henderson pounced on one of the photographers, throttling him into submission. But Henderson's act of chivalry may result in LH7, the company that brought him over to Taiwan, dumping him from its roster of models. Perhaps Akemi should have warned ol' Hen about Asia's gossip hounds before engaging in public displays of affection.
And finally, a warning for readers who plan on enjoying a jaunt out to Wulai (烏來) for a dip in the hot springs: there's a Peeping Tom on the loose. In a front-page story, Apple published an image of a man with binoculars partially obscured by bushes looking across a wide ravine into a row of resorts. The vernacular daily also provided images of the scene the Peeping Tom was presumably watching: a nude couple in various acts of copulation. Pop Stop has to wonder what the paper's photographer was doing there in the first place.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
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