My homecoming.

These were the words of a spirited Fiona Xie last Thursday as she greeted the warm and receptive 100-strong crowd gathered at Orchard Central shopping mall.

"I haven't been back for so long... This is like a homecoming for me," exclaimed the 30-year-old curvaceous, doe-eyed local personality and former MediaCorp actress.

Xie, who has been out of the limelight for more than a year, was the host of a pre-launch event for the new Red Bull World concept store.

While it was the evening's special guests, Formula One drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, who received the loudest cheers from the racing fans, Xie - once part of MediaCorp's elite stable of Seven Princesses - was certainly nowallflower.

As eye candy, she wasn't only delectable, but popular.

"Hey, look, it's Fiona Xie!" a guy was spotted nudging his friend excitedly.

Though based in Hong Kong currently, the majority of male sports enthusiasts could clearly relate to her.

Before the arrival of Germany's Vettel and Australia's Webber, many whipped out their camera phones to snap pictures of Xie in a smart custom-made Red Bull racing suit.

Some even asked to pose for photographs with her and she obliged.

Perhaps, absence really does make the heart fonder.

We weren't too sure, though, if Xie, a long-time supporter of Red Bull Racing, genuinely meant it when she publicly referred to her hasty trip home as a "homecoming".

Could it be more a stopover, instead?

She is slated to depart for Hong Kong a couple of days after the Formula One Grand Prix night race, which ended Sunday night.

The New Paper chatted with her briefly after Thursday's event and found her musings about her future to be as ambivalent as they were a year ago.

She had returned to serve as the chief judge of local magazine 8 Days' Ultimate Shirtless Guy competition and had shared with this newspaper: "I won't say if I'm planning to come back to showbiz or not. The world's my oyster and I don't want to fence myself in."

It was no different this time around.

"Never say never," she laughed, when asked if a comeback to the local entertainment scene was on the cards.

"Actually, I haven't really done anything pertaining to entertainment since I left...

"Many people have been asking me, 'What happened to you?' Well, there have been offers, but I haven't accepted anything.

"Of course, if there are good projects, I would be keen to take them on. Let's just pray and see where it all leads me."

Grinning, she added a shout-out to her fans: "Please send me love letters and I'll come back!"

Xie, who flew in the night before her Red Bull hosting gig, added that she wasn't considering venturing into hosting.

That, despite putting in a commendable performance, considering she doesn't host regular programmes.

Friendly and charming on stage, she livened the atmosphere for Vettel and Webber, whom Xie described as "two of the nicest and most humble sportsmen around".

"Actually, I don't like to host," she said. "They arrived a little late and I had already finished all that I wanted to say, so I did my best bantering with the audience. It's nice being around good energy... Everyone was happy and in great spirits."

Non-committal

Xie's non-committal attitude has, to a certain extent, cast her in a mysterious, alluring light that helps to maintain, or elevate her celebrity status.

She infamously quit MediaCorp in 2009 and vanished from the public eye, only to pop back on our radars last September when she opened up to the local media about her "sabbatical", which included a career in photography, delving briefly into the Hong Kong property and commodity markets and enrolling in creativity, art and fashion classes in New York.

There was her headline-hogging personal life.

For a while after her split with her Australian-American boyfriend, reported to be a Luke Fehon, there was talk that she was dating hunky Eurasian model Vivian Dawson, better known as Mandopop pop star Jolin Tsai's beau.

Paparazzi had spotted them in a club in Taiwan earlier this year, but Dawson has since denied the rumours.

Fans of Xie can catch her in the upcoming A-niu-directed Malaysian comedy The Golden Couple, co-starring Taiwanese idol drama leading man Mike He and due for release at the end of the year.

Will she be back to promote the film?

The same old, uncertain Xie instantly resurfaced: "I don't know."

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