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 no wallflower.

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.

Read the full story here.