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School for Scandal
Porn Doesn't Pay for Edison Chen

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PARTY ANIMAL CHEN Boner brigade
As the Edison Chen sex scandal enters its third week, the fallout continues. Chen, the Canadian-born Asian film star who had the fortune of bedding a cavalcade of Asian starlets but the misfortune of having lewd photos he took of said starlets wind up on the Internet, has just been dropped as the face of EPS, a major Hong Kong credit card company. It was previously reported that Chen's roles in Christopher Nolan's Batman flick as well as a host of upcoming Asian action films may also be cut.

Chen, whose middling song-and-dance talent belies just how popular he is overseas, also has endorsement deals with Pepsi, Levi's, and Samsung. Those companies have not yet dropped him, though a spokesperson for Pepsi has said they are "constantly monitoring" the situation.

It is still unclear how the dirty photos made their way from Chen's customized pink Macbook to the Web—the leak is believed to have taken place at the computer repair shop where's Chen laptop was being serviced, though no employees have been formally charged. Chinese and Hong Kong censors, however, continue to crack down on those who post and disseminate the pics (perhaps erroneously, according to an editorial in the Asian edition of today's Wall Street Journal). Yesterday, China's top search engine, baidu.com, was taken to task by a government-sponsored watchdog for its perceived lethargic response time to the scandal, "leading to the stagnation of a large amount of pornographic, filthy pictures."

By Neel Shah   02/19/08 3:03 PM
Related: Baidu, Edison Chen, Hong Kong
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