This time, A-list celebrities like Cecilia Cheung (张柏芝) are not featured. Instead, the photos are supposedly taken from the phone of an unknown 16-year-old model, Cammi Xie (谢芷蕙), who dated Chen for six months before their split after the scandal broke.

After the photos were posted online, they went viral and Xie, a member of the band Fantasy and a high school student, has been followed ever since by the Hong Kong media. Although not as raw as the photos from 2008, Chen, 32 has become the staple of gossip magazines once again.

In 2008, he was seen as a predator, and the women as victims.

This time, however, some say Xie is at least at much at fault.

Southern Entertainment Weekly (南都娱乐周刊), an authoritative magazine on the entertainment industry, ran an editorial by Liu Tong saying that this was Cammi Xie’s way of turning publicity on herself.

The tables have turned this time. The mastermind was no longer Edison Chen. The young model took photos herself and on purpose, with Edison Chen playing the supporting role. We might think that there are shadows in his life about this sort of thing, but from the peachy and sunny smile on his face, we realize that he just needs to give the girl in his arms a basic responsibility. Men and women who have lived in certain closed environments [i.e. the entertainment industry], need not communicate about certain rules. Many keen hunters like to keep a photo of themselves shouldering their guns with their prey under their feet, with a dirty smile on their faces. I make the evil guess that many many girls similar to this young model also like to keep a photo like this as hidden proof that they hunted down their prey.

This is a speculation that many netizens have also made.

On bbs.heze.cn, a post on the entertainment industry and celebrities using each other garnered over 2000 views and over 50 replies. Some of the users reacted to the scandal driven entertainment industry, some skeptically.

ViewFromHigh: Edison was the one being used for self-promotion this time 登高望远2011 冠希这次是被炒作了 NewWillow: The people in entertainment circles are really filthy 新柳: 娱乐圈太脏 TenderFingertips: So many scandals in the entertainment industry 指尖温柔: 娱乐圈里绯闻多。 Bai Yangqing: The entertainment world really is a big pool of dye… 白杨青 文艺界真是个大染缸…

What are your views on these types of scandals and the general cult of celebrity we see so much of on the web. Let us know in the comments.