SINGAPORE - Dethroned local beauty queen Ris Low is in the news for controversial reasons again.

The 23-year-old, who first made headlines in 2009 for her famous "boomz" catchphrase and credit-card fraud conviction, is embroiled in a bedroom photo scandal of sorts.

Earlier this week, two photos showing a woman and a bespectacled man in intimate poses were uploaded on Low's Facebook wall by local businessman Fred Chua, 37, who had tagged Low in the pictures and written "ris low & me" as captions.

Both photographs were self-taken, and show the duo from their bare shoulders up with their faces pressed close together.

When The New Paper quizzed Low about the photos and her relationship with Mr Chua on Wednesday, she firmly denied being the woman in question.

"It's not me, she doesn't look like me at all, it's an impostor," she said adamantly.

"I really pity the girl, I wonder how she feels.

"There are so many pictures (of women) on the Internet, especially on China websites, that look like me. I have a common face."

She also said she did not feel a need to take the pictures off her Facebook wall as she "doesn't understand what's the big hoo-ha over these pictures".

Low, who is working at her parents' renovation company, insisted she does not know Mr Chua well.

She's better acquainted with Mr Chua's 34-year-old brother, who she got to know when she was 17, Low said.

"My only communication with (Mr Chua) is via Facebook messaging," she said, adding that they are Facebook friends because she is "not very careful" when it comes to adding online acquaintances.

Owed money

"His brother owes me $4,000 from when we were 18 and I've sent him (Mr Chua) two messages to get his brother to return the money as soon as possible."

She said she did not ask the brother what the money was for then, as she was aware that "people usually have their own sensitive reasons for borrowing money".

Mr Chua's brother has not returned a single cent to her, Low claimed.

He is uncontactable and they do not have mutual friends, so she has no other option but to go through MrChua.

As it turns out, money was the reason Mr Chua, who sells curtains and blinds, uploaded the two bedroom photos in the first place.

"I wanted to stop her from pestering me," he told The New Paper when we contacted him over the phone.

His mobile number is printed on his Facebook profile page.

"She keeps bugging me about wanting her money back. It's like, come on lah, she owes me money too, but I don't keep pestering her, right?"

He added: "I volunteered to pay for my brother, but Ris didn't accept it. She wanted my brother to pay her back directly."

Mr Chua dissed Low's denial of being the woman in the photos as "nonsense".

"You can get a photo specialist to verify their authenticity," he snapped.

He claimed he and Low dated for a year in 2009 and the photos were taken "just months" after she was stripped of her Miss Singapore World title due to her fraud conviction.

After some probing, he went on to claim that the photos were shot while they were "in bed" and Low was "wearing nothing" then.

"We kept our relationship secret as I'm much older than her," said Mr Chua, who is a divorcee.

He was already divorced when he started dating Low, he stressed.