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Tue, Mar 10, 2009
The New Paper
Targeted because of frank comments?

By Tay Shi'an

DISTORTED Photoshop images, petty accusations, fake identities, and another nude picture 'scandal'.

This time the victim of the online flaming is Singaporean part-time model Jenna Chan, 24, who uses the nickname Jenzene on various gossip forums that target prominent local bloggers.

Dozens of nude photos of Ms Chan were splashed earlier this week on an overseas website notorious for posting revealing and obscene celebrity pictures.

The pictures were taken from her online modelling portfolio - Ms Chan poses for nude artistic photos as part of her job.

But the two 'informants' who sent them to the website claimed otherwise.

They gleefully called the nude pictures a 'scandal', and claimed they were 'leaked' after an argument between Ms Chan and her fellow bloggers.

One 'informant' also accused Ms Chan of being famous for uglifying blogger Dawn Yang's pictures using Photoshop.

The pictures and accusations were sensationally titled 'Nudity and betrayal in Singapore'.

But the US-based Ms Chan told The New Paper via e-mail that she had been maligned - she has never created any such pictures of Dawn.

She added she wasn't upset or ashamed about her nude photos being online.

She was only angry about them being posted on a lewd website, and without permission from either her or the photographers who took them.

She said: 'Whoever maliciously spread my photos obviously thinks that I will be shamed as a result, but if I were ashamed about nudity, I wouldn't have modelled nude in the first place!

'The allegation posted on (the website) that I defaced Dawn Yang's pictures is absolutely not true. I couldn't care less about people's opinions of me, but lies are unforgivable.'

Then came a second surprise: Someone claiming to be Ms Chan e-mailed the website, threatening legal action if the webmaster did not 'cease and desist'.

Ms Chan said she was not the one who sent the e-mail, which was reproduced on the website and mocked by the webmaster.

She does not know who's behind the pictures and fake e-mail, but thinks she may have been targeted because of the vocal and colourful way she mocks pictures posted by several local bloggers, including Dawn, Xue Sha and Paperger, on various forums.

She said: 'I simply say what I think - if I notice that a showgirl has Photoshopped her own pictures or has bad hair extensions, I say so.'

Ms Chan moved to the US when she was 7, and graduated from a liberal arts college with a degree in chemistry in 2005.

She started modelling in her free time that year. She has a full-time job as a research chemist.

She said that when she first told her family she was an artistic model, they did ask her to stop. But they do support her mostly 'because it is a harmless activity that makes me happy'.

'As for my friends, they think I look great!'

She said she treats those who equate nude photography with porn with 'total indifference'.

'You either get it or you don't,' she said.

The photographer who took the nude pictures of Ms Chan was also upset. He lodged a complaint with the website's webmaster, but said he got no response.

This story was first published in The New Paper.


 

 
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