Edison Chen

Actor / Singer

Edison Chen is a Canadian actor who rocketed to fame in the Hong Kong entertainment industry in the early 2000s, then abruptly withdrew from his career in 2008 as the result of a sex scandal. Also known as Chen Koon Hei (also: Chan Hing Wah, Chen Xing Hua), he spent his early childhood in British Columbia and his teen years in Hong Kong. Discovered in 1999, he was thrust into the limelight as an actor and pop singer, and after the 2002-03 movie trilogy Infernal Affairs he was a bona fide film star. By 2007 he had released half a dozen pop records, starred in films like Dog Bite Dog (2006) and The Grudge 2 (2006, with Sarah Michelle Gellar) and branched out and formed CLOT, Inc., a design, multi-media and business consulting firm. Chen was at the center of a sex photo scandal in early 2008, when sexually explicit photos were stolen from him and distributed on the internet. The photos featured Chen with several well-known Asian starlets, including Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung, and occupied the Hong Kong press for weeks. Chen held a press conference on 21 February 2008 and apologized, saying he had "failed as a role model." He announced he would "step away from the Hong Kong entertainment industry" indefinitely.