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updated 3 Jan 2012, 23:38
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Thu, Jan 06, 2011
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Singapore hairstylist in Nicole Kidman photo puzzle
by Rachel Chan

Take a look at these pictures.

The one on the far right shows Hollywood A-list actress Nicole Kidman standing beside Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar.

The other shows her in the same pose with Singapore hairstylist Jonal Chong.

Both look almost identical. In both pictures, the Australian actress is wearing the same black tube dress lined with vertical silver stripes. Amenabar and Mr Chong appear to share the same get-up of a black jacket over a blue shirt.

CELEBRITY TOUCH: The photo featuring
Mr Jonal Chong and Nicole Kidman is also
on the flip side of his business card, with
a handwritten message printed on it.
(PHOTO: JONAL CHONG)

An online search reveals that two websites, namely bbc.co.uk and Hollywood.com, have the same Amenabar/Kidman shot.

Further checks show that it was taken on Aug 7, 2001, outside the Directors' Guild of America's screening auditorium in Los Angeles. The auditorium was screening the premiere of Amenabar's acclaimed psychological horror film, The Others, which starred Kidman as a mother who lived in a house with two children.

There are also other shots of Kidman and Amenabar at the same event posted online.

my paper met Mr Chong yesterday afternoon at his salon, Jonal Chong Hair Couture, in Orchard Central.

When asked about his picture with Kidman, Mr Chong, 48, said in Mandarin: "The picture was taken in 2002 at the premiere of Birth in London." Birth was a 2004 film directed by British director Jonathan Glazer and starred Kidman as a widow who was convinced that her dead husband had been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy.

Asked to explain the similarity between the two premiere photographs, he said: "I don't know... I can't explain it. I don't know why Nicole's head is facing the same direction. I don't know why the background looks similar."

When pressed further to offer a possible explanation for the striking resemblance between the photographs, he said that "it's wrong to cut and paste" and repeatedly muttered: "Who would want to smear my reputation?"

Asked if he has other pictures of himself and Kidman, he said: "I have many but I left them in London." He said he has a hair salon in London.

He said this is the only photo of him and Kidman which he brought home from London because "it showed me attending my first movie premiere with Nicole", he explained.

Mr Chong's business name card (above) also features the same Kidman photograph. It is printed with a handwritten message that says: "To Jonal Chong, Hair Couture, all the best, Nicole Kidman." The same message was also printed on a large poster of Kidman which was hanging in the salon yesterday.

He added that he would have gone to Los Angeles to style her hair for the Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel on Jan 16, if not for the amount of business he has to handle for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Mr Chong, who is also the managing director of his salon, was interviewed previously by my paper.

In an August 2009 article, he said he had been based in London for seven years and was Kidman's hairstylist from 2000 to 2005. He also said he styled hair for American actress Katherine Heigl and British actor Hugh Grant.

In the article, he also said that British actor Ewan McGregor contacted him to style his hair for Moulin Rouge's London premiere. It was there that Kidman reportedly hired him on the spot.

He told my paper yesterday that he took a five-day advanced course at Vidal Sassoon School in October in 1985. He returned to Singapore in 2005 for family matters. He also added that he continued to style Kidman's hair from 2006 to 2008 on an ad-hoc basis.

An online search shows that over the past decade, Mr Chong was a director in a pawn shop, Kwong Hin Pawn Shop.

He is also a director in three businesses, namely Jonal Chong Hair Couture, Jonal Chong International and Savoir Fair.

He was also featured prominently in a series of print advertisements for his salon last month and on Sunday.

For more my paper stories click here.

 

More stories:

Singaporean was hair guru to Nicole Kidman

readers' comments
CASE has no teeth and is useless with absolutely no vested power!

we are continuing to send messages to all cheats and potential cheats; "hey, its ok, just apologise via a letter and we forgive you!". WTF! you and I who have been fleeced by unscrupulous retailers daily; and do we get a fair and adequate redress? FUC'K ALL.

what a waste of time pursuing with CASE. just the same outcome with the SimLimSq's cheats, time-shares hustlers, multi-level marketing scammers, unit trust investments, over charging by lawyers, over servicing by doctors, workshop mechanics, etc.... have you heard of any cases handled by them leading to heavy fines or jail terms? i have not. have you? all we hear is "sanction", "black list", "slap on the wrist" or some stupid "demerit points"; are these truly enough? i certainly don't think so.
.....
Posted by Leonopteryx on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 at 11:25 AM
So he has admitted that all his claims are fake.

Dont know about you I would not pay a cent to have my hair styled by a Liar
Posted by micky2008 on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 at 11:11 AM
Maybe Jonal Chong should change profession from hair stylist to con artist? He's dishonest and tried to trick the public & all his customers. Who would dare to do business with him now?
Posted by marketwatcher on Sun, 9 Jan 2011 at 06:49 AM


B'cos he got the thick skinned face of an elephant's! This is one person really pathetic..... a 48 yr old bluffing everyone aroudn the world and in the end made him look so stoppid and silly like what he is looking like now!
Posted by gundamwingX on Sat, 8 Jan 2011 at 23:54 PM
just googled nicole kidman and Alejandro Amenabar, under images, one will find tons of photos of both of them appearing together, wearing exact clothes as above, for the movies 'The Others', Mr chong thought singaporeans are dumb or what!!
Posted by sharototo on Sat, 8 Jan 2011 at 01:39 AM
There's an online tool that can help identify fake from real image: http://www.errorlevelanalysis.com/

nbsp
Posted by Posted on Fri, 7 Jan 2011 at 12:32 PM
How can one shamelessly continue to lie even with such undisputable evidence!
Posted by 6505341124 on Thu, 6 Jan 2011 at 23:20 PM
Look at the two photographs of Jonal taken with Hugh Grant and with Katherine Heigi.

Both are also photoshop... Someone is using the same Jonal's face and merge into both photographs. The angle and the skin tone are both the same.

As for the shots with Heigi, Jonal face is Blowup to fit into the neckline of an original person, thereby causing Jonal's face to "swell" up.
Posted by Enji_Koh on Thu, 6 Jan 2011 at 21:05 PM
Did anyone notice the blue hue around the spanish director's head, bigger hue around his neck(near his shirt collar) right up to his head.

I normally see this hue after photoshop is done.

Can anyone comment?

Hollywood web site blue hue is clearer. I Suspect spanish pic is fake.
Posted by barf2001 on Thu, 6 Jan 2011 at 20:35 PM
So is this a photoshop job? Why bother in the first place?
Posted by novicereporter on Thu, 6 Jan 2011 at 17:38 PM

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