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Excerpt (1):

In the flesh, 27-year-old actress singer Rui En could pass for a junior college student. ...she is usually tight-lipped about her personal life, especially about her broken family.

...Her parents divorced when she was 17. Her father remarried three years later and her mother did the same a year ago.

...On those tumultuous years, she says: "My career started when I was about 20 but I actually started acting when I was a child. I developed a very fertile imagination because I was lonely and I didn't have anyone to share my loneliness and frustrations with.
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She went on to relate how her insecurity about being unwanted and ugly led her to doing some things against her true character.

Excerpt 2:

...I got into show business for the wrong reasons, thinking if someone wants to sign me, it means I'm not that unwanted, I'm not so ugly. It was just this stupid insecurity thing.

Until she was in her early 20s, she smoked and drank socially. "Smoking was something I did because I wanted to be cool," she says.

But in 2004, she started an overhaul of her life. On her own, she realised how her teenage delinquency, which set off another war at home between her and her parents, and her modelling, singing and acting career were all symptoms of her insecurity.

"I was looking for ways to fill the emptiness that I felt. And I used everything, from hanging out with older people to partying to fame. I thought that fame was the ultimate answer to my problems.

..."I remember watching Achar! and thinking that I didn't recognise myself. I was doing kissing scenes and all this annoying behaviour. I watched the show and thought that was not me. All I saw in my eyes was the hunger for fame and popularity. I really hated what I had become.

"So I decided to sit down and take stock of my life. I realised that I was just allowing myself to be a victim."

She adds: "I didn't want to be a victim anymore. I didn't want to use my broken family as an excuse for my behaviour anymore. I had to grow up."

So she quit smoking and drinking. She quit wanting to be famous and popular. And most significantly for her career, she quit doing kissing and intimate scenes.

...It has also been reported that there are influential TV producers who will not cast her in their shows. This does not concern her, not when she is finally at peace with herself. She says she is in a good place in her life because she is not fighting with herself anymore.
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Excerpt (3)

...She says she does not have any good friends in the industry. She does not have many good friends, period.

"I don't understand why people are so fearful of being alone. I love being alone."

As impressive as her Wolverine-like self-healing ability is, a counsellor or therapist might say she still has some things to work on.

For one thing, she seems a little too thin, although she says her negative body image days are behind her.

ALso, she seems to have a fear of relationships. Currently single, she says she regrets all the romantic relationships she has had till now and admits she might never get married.

"My mother is quite upset and has said to me, 'Please don't use us as an example'. But when you grow up in that environment, you become careful. I would rather not put my welfare or my fate in the hands of somebody else."

Then why did she do this heart-to-heart interview, which certainly requires a great amount of trust?

"I am hoping that kids who read this might realise that no matter how bad your family situation is, you have a choice not to be a victim," she says.
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Quotes from Rui En on the following topics:

On why kissing scenes are not necessary

'A kissing scene is not going to immediately make the chemistry between two actors wonderful. I mean, let's just act'

On being resolutely single at the moment

'I decided that I would be okay being on my own if I never found the right person, because the last thing I want to do is get married for the sake of doing it. That would just be repeating my parents' mistake
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Source: ST Monday, 15 December 2008
Title: Inside the outsider
Reporter: Andy Chen