TWO YEARS ago, Christy Yow shot to fame after flaunting her 36C bosom in a skimpy bikini for the cover of a local men’s magazine. Would she do it all over again?

No, she said. “Those sexy poses are deeply stuck in the minds of people who know me. It’s very hard for me to break away from the image of a sex goddess,” said Yow, 25, in a phone interview from Hong Kong, where she now lives.

“Now that I am married and have my own family, I have to consider and be sensitive to the feelings of my family and my in-laws.

“I hope to have a totally different image. But I am still asked to pose for sexy photos.”

She recalled one instance during a photo shoot in Bali – she got a rude shock when she was handed a bikini.

“I told myself that I have to be professional and complete the photoshoot even though I felt really embarrassed to be wearing so little and exposing so much in a photoshoot.

“The stylist and photographer were very nice and I decided to trust them to do a tasteful job.

“The effects turned out well. But if I can turn back time, I wouldn’t have done those shoots.”

There is no denying that the photos helped build her career.

Yow was made the brand ambassador for men’s apparel Crocodile and went on to grace the covers and lifestyle sections of regional magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue in Korea and Taiwan.

Last year, she was offered the lead role in Eric Khoo’s biopic of Singapore’s famous stripper Rose Chan called The Charming Rose. She was to play the titular character.

But Yow put her career on hold last April when she found out that she was pregnant with her then-fiance, Taiwanese businessman Alansk Wang’s baby.

The couple moved to Hong Kong where they registered their marriage. Yow gave birth to their daughter, Agnes, last October.

She had not been bothered about her sexy bombshell image until one day when her husband told her that her father-in-law had Googled her name and was shocked to find racy photos of her on the Internet.

She said: “My husband did not tell me what my father-in-law had said about those photos. But I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable whenever I see him now and think of those photos.

“But he’s nice enough to not bring up the topic.

“Now that I am a mother, someone’s wife and daughter-in-law, I feel that I have to consider their feelings before I do anything.”

This article was first published in The New Paper.

Read also:

Instant fame, future shame?