PETALING JAYA - Malaysia's first Playboy bunny feels she is "worth more than showing off my body."
Felixia Yeap, whose modelling career took off after a stint at the Playboy Club Sands Macau two years ago, is now modelling Muslimah clothing such as the hijab (conservative, long, headscarf worn by some Muslim women).
"I believe I am worth more than just showing off my body. I am more than this.
"And I don't feel proud if attention- or fame-seeking model wannabes out there look at me as their idol or role model," she said in a blog post titled "The Truth Behind My Hijab.
Yeap, 26, has posed for Playboy Philippines, the third Malaysian to do so in the men's magazine that features photographs of nude women. She, however, did not appear in the nude.
It was after having posed in swimsuits and lingerie for numerous other publications that got her thinking about a woman's worth in all her "achievements."
Yeap lamented that due to the modelling career, she was "used" by men who were only out looking for fun instead of a wife for marriage.
"I crumbled time after time...I picked myself up just to crumble all over again," she said, adding that many people had wrongly assumed her to be a party animal who drank, smoke and indulged in casual sex.
Yeap said she felt "liberated" after she paraded in the hijab for a commercial casting a few months ago.
Now, she feels "happy, protected and safe" everytime she dons the hijab.
And when another opportunity arose to model the hijab for Ramadan recently, she seized it without much thought.
"I realised that I was looking forward to cover up (my body) more. When someone grows up they become wiser," she told Star Online.
But modelling the hijab has not changed her religion. She denied that she had converted to Islam and remained a free thinker.
In recent weeks, Yeap has posted pictures of herself wearing the hijab in her Facebook fan page that has more than 148,000 likes.
She still does "sexy" fashion shoots but that is because she has to "pay the bills." And she is more selective now with her assignments.
"I am planning to slow down on those kind of shoots and try my best to avoid them. I only do about 30 per cent of the requests I get," she said.