Film star Tang Thanh Ha caused controversy after a racy image of hers was posted on the Internet

Actresses and singers were in the news for all the wrong reasons last year but to them it seemed merely a way to remain in the public eye.

Film star Tang Thanh Ha, famous for her leading roles in recent TV series like Bong dung muon khoc (Suddenly wanna cry), found herself in trouble last November for a photo in the popular tabloid ngoisao.net in which she shows off more than her angelic face.

The 23-year-old actress posed in a white blouse which left nothing to the imagination. The photo then spread like wildfire across teenage online forums and sites.

A tearful Ha explained “it was an accident” and asked for the public’s sympathy. She also blamed her hectic schedule for the uncensored image getting out.

This is the first time such an “accident” has occurred to Ha who has in the past sent many photos to newspapers.

But such accidents seemed to happen with bewildering frequency on the showbiz scene last year, with female artists claiming with embarrassing regularity that they had not done it deliberately or to attract the media spotlight.

Actress-singer Minh Hang’s self-shot photos of her in lingerie fell into the hands of a teenaged boy last April after she lost her laptop with a bunch of these photos. Several also show the star in various states of undress and posing suggestively.

The 23-year-old was severely disparaged especially because she has in the past shouted from the rooftops her yearning not to be involved in scandals of any sort.

Catfights on every corner

But it was not just leaked photos of cleavages and naked bodies that rocked Vietnamese showbiz. Many artists also made headlines because of their spats and lawsuits and lawsuit threats.

Model-turned-actress Phi Thanh Van recently made critical noise about model Xuan Lan on ngoisao.net, setting off a noisy squabble between the two on newspapers and their blogs. The public finally tired of the catfight, but the two continue to call each other names.

Then there was Thien Thi Corporation’s lawsuit against its former exclusively contracted singer Tim, real name Tran Nguyen Cat Vu, after he pulled out of the contract.

The company reportedly claimed in its suit that Tim should pay VND10 billion (US$540,000) to compensate for their loss for the remaining five years in his contract and should no longer use the stage name Tim.

Singer Thanh Thao’s Music Box Company also had a spat with its elite pop singer Tu Minh Hy for canceling shows and leaving the company without giving notice.

Interestingly, the media, especially newswires, has become a kind of arbitrator. But as always, what seemed to matter was not who was in the right – for the artists involved, it was more about making headlines. The more quarrels they had, the more scandals they engendered, the more well-known they became. It boiled down to the old truism: no news in bad news.

Compiled by Thuy Nhien