Deconstructing the Hayden Kho sex scandal : The facts (Part 1 of 3)

"Baby namin yan ni Vicki, si Katrina. Ewan ko kung saan nanggaling yan (Katrina is our baby, Vicki's and mine. I don't know where [those rumors] came from)," Dr. Hayden Kho told the Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP) in an interview published on 19 May 2008. He was referring to the rumors that he and actress Katrina Halili were having a clandestine love affair while he was in a relationship with prominent beauty specialist Dr. Vicki Belo. Halili was also a celebrity endorser of the Belo Medical Group, where Kho worked.

One year later, almost to the day, sex videos of Kho and Halili began to circulate on the Internet, as well as sex videos of Kho with other women, many of them also celebrities. An indignant Halili filed a complaint against Kho for violating her rights, and called for other "victims" to surface and support her cause.

Looking for princes and finding frogs

Hayden Kho met doctor to the stars Vicki Belo in 2006 when they were both invited to judge a competition, according to an article in YES! Magazine. Belo initially wanted to make a match between Kho and her daughter Cristalle, but the latter already had a boyfriend. Kho instead paid his attentions to Belo and joined the Belo Medical Group upon passing his board exams, says blogger Chuvachienes.

The May-December romance between the two doctors seemed almost too good to be true. "I get to be her hero and she gets to be my princess," Kho said of Belo in an interview with Showbiz Central in May 2008. Belo encouraged Kho's showbiz career as he competed in the talent show Celebrity Duets and later took on roles playing doctors in the local adaptations of Marimar and Kim Sam Soon.

In December 2008, however, rumors started that Belo and Kho were splitting up due to a third party. The rumors were substantiated in a 10 December 2008 PEP article claiming that Belo had discovered sex videos of Kho with other women on the latter's computer, and had both broken up with Kho and fired him as a result. Allegedly, two of those women were actresses Katrina Halili and Rufa Mae Quinto. The latter has vehemently denied any such involvement with Kho.

Halili, on the other hand, had been linked to Kho after the latter's stint in Celebrity Duets. She had been his celebrity partner for one of the duets in the competition. Afterwards, Halili also became an endorser for Belo's clinic, even posing nude back to back with Kho in one of the clinic's most well-known advertisements.

After Belo and Kho broke up, Halili admitted that she and Kho had had an affair for a few months, simultaneous with Belo and Kho's relationship. "[I]t was a mistake. Na-in-love po ako talaga sa maling tao [I fell in love with the wrong person]," Halili reportedly said.

Kho, meanwhile, attempted to commit suicide on 15 December 2008 by overdosing on Valium. When he was rushed to the hospital, the words "I LOVE U! I LOVE U VICKI!" were found written on his chest.

Although Kho had initially denied having an affair with Halili, he later admitted that he had, and asked Belo for forgiveness. However, he denied the existence of any sex videos, and asked people to give him and Belo time to sort out their problems.

"Ito lang, gusto kong sabihin sa iyo... Amor, mahal, my princess, I do love you. [This is all I want to say to you... Love, my love, my princess, I do love you.] And although I made all those mistakes... unfaithfulness, I do love you... L-O-V-E. I love you in every sense of the word. I hope you can forgive me," Kho appealed to Belo as quoted by PEP.

In a 24 February 2009 article on Telebisyon.net, Belo says that the video she saw was that of Kho and Halili talking. "What hurt me the most was when Katrina told him: 'Girlfriend mo lang naman siya, ako ang asawa mo. [She is just your girlfriend, I am your wife.]'"

Despite being spotted several times in Kho's company after the breakup, Belo denies that they have gotten back together. She reportedly refused to reconcile with him.

The truth will come out in careless whispers

A very short newsbite by Dolly Anne Carvajal on Inquirer.net on 11 May 2009 mentions that a video of Halili and Kho doing a sensual dance to the tune of "Careless Whisper" was circulating on the internet. Over a week later, other, more explicit videos had surfaced and were fast becoming the talk of cyberspace. Always fast on the uptake, video pirates immediately latched on to the trend; bootleg DVDs began circulating on the streets of Manila as well.

Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. denounced Kho's acts in a privilege speech at the Senate on 19 May 2009, calling Kho a "maniac," a "predator," and a "pervert of the highest kind," and pushed for the passing of an anti-voyeurism bill seeking to penalize those who upload sex videos to the Internet.

The next day, Revilla helped Halili file a complaint against Kho with the NBI. Halili also sought to have Kho's medical license revoked by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

Kho, Belo, and a certain Eric Chua have been subpoenaed by the NBI to appear before it in connection with the investigation into the scandal, but they were no-shows at the hearing on 22 May 2009.

Kho has issued a statement on the videos. He apologized to those who may have been harmed by the video, but said that he had nothing to do with their dissemination. According to actor Edu Manzano, Chua was the one responsible.

Halili was not impressed by his apology."Parang ang hirap naman po ... Di dapat pwersahan po, di lang ganon di lang paghingi ng tawad. Dapat siya [ay] parusahan [I find it difficult to forgive him just like that. And his apology should not be a forced one. That apology should not get him off the hook. He should be punished]," GMANews.tv quotes Halili as saying. "[W]ala akong pakialam sino nagkalat, nandoon na, pinagpipiyestahan na ng tao [I don't care at this time who posted it online. The damage is done]," she added.

In a 2007 interview by Ricky Lo, Kho had named both Halili and Belo as among the women he thought had nice bodies, and Chua among the men. Asked how he would make a woman know that he admired her using only body language, Kho had answered, "I look at her from a perpendicular point of view."

This article is the first of three installments. Watch out for the rest this weekend here on the Philippine Online Chronicles.

Deconstructing the Hayden Kho sex scandal: The fallout (Part 2 of 3)
Deconstructing the Hayden Kho sex scandal: The free-for-all (Part 3 of 3)

Photo of Hayden Kho is a low-resolution screencap of a Startalk interview and is believed to fall under fair use. Photo of Katrina Halili by -Gep- on flickr; licensed under CC License BY-ND-2.0.

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