In May 2019, a video was leaked of explicit Instagram messages sent between Singapore actress Carrie Wong and actor Ian Fang, and it was widely talked about for weeks. People have since moved on from the issue, and both stars have both avoided talking about the scandal after filing police reports. However, Carrie has recently opened up about it in Quan Yifeng’s talk show ‘Hear U Out’.
Carrie broke down several times during the talk show as she spoke about the scandal that happened 15 months ago, which is understandable seeing as how it damaged both her reputation and that of Ian Fang’s. Plus, it coincided with her mother’s birthday at the time. Carrie shared that since everybody in Singapore knew what had happened, all she could really do was face it. “You can only move on if you confront the issue, but it’s not easy,” she admitted.
She recalled that she was filming something in Indonesia when the news broke, and she had to send her parents a message to warn them of what was to come. “I told my parents that it wasn’t a big deal and that it would pass quickly. I told them not to worry about me,” she shared, adding that she apologised to her mother as she greeted her on her birthday.
Carrie admitted that she was more worried about her parents than about herself. “I keep bad news to myself; but when this incident happened, they would find out about it, whether or not I told them about it.” Carrie became more emotional as she owned up to her mistake. “I was fine with everyone saying things about me, but not when they said things about my parents,” she said, pointing out that netizens usually show no mercy on the Internet.
Upon returning to Singapore, Carried recalled distancing herself from her parents because she didn’t know how to face them. Instead, she spent her time at her friend’s house, hoping that her parents would be asleep by the time she came home. Still, she would find her father waiting in the living room every night before turning the lights off and going to bed.
“They never asked me about it. Not even once,” she recalled. “They know I didn’t want to talk about it, which is why they didn’t ask. I know that this must have hurt them more than it hurt me. When the news blew up, their friends would definitely have asked them about it, and I’m sure that my parents were suffering in a way that I didn’t know about.”
It was definitely a hard time in Carrie’s life. She shared that she didn’t want to leave her house and spent a lot of time locked up in her room without eating or drinking, just wanting to fall asleep and escape the world. She didn’t even want to go to work and face people because she knew that everybody was aware of the situation.
“At the time, I just wanted to disappear,” she admitted. “I’m a public figure, but I wanted to disappear into the crowd. I didn’t want anyone to recognise me. I didn’t want anyone to remember me. I didn’t want to face the crowd. I’m still afraid to face the crowd. It’s hard to shake that feeling.”
Still, Carrie found a silver lining to the experience: she now knows who her true friends are. While some people said hurtful things about her in public; others accompanied her through it, even staying at the police station with her until 3 in the morning until she finished her statement.
Carrie also shared that she has grown a lot because of the scandal and that she holds no resentment toward anyone, not even the mystery person responsible for the leak. “I believe that things will eventually get better,” she added. You may watch the episode of ‘Hear U Out’ here.
Carrie is currently starring in the drama series ‘A Quest to Heal’, which tells the story of a woman and an imperial guard who travel to modern Singapore from the Ming Dynasty by accident and face evil palace forces who want to rule both worlds.
