Chen, who was suspended from presenting duties said it was a "public interest
advertisement", the Beijing News said.
Changsha TV, in a statement, said Chen has been suspended from her job and
would be handled according to its rules.
Chen Dan in one of the controversial advertisements |
The statement said the advertisement, with its leading presenter as a model,
was not endorsed by the TV station, therefore damaging its image and legal
rights. The statement said the TV station reserves the right of legal action
against the activity organizer.
"My intentions were good," the paper quoted her as saying. "I hoped to draw
people's attention to women's health, but because the format was inappropriate
it caused a huge backlash. In future I will choose more suitable ways of
publicising women's health."
Chen admitted that her modeling in the advertisement was not approved by her
employer and she made a wrong decision and would never do such a thing again.
The advertisement provoked fierce debate online and in local media over the
morality of using nudity to promote public interest causes, and whether the
article was a commercial stunt for the women or Changsha's Shangmei Gynaecology
Hospital.
"What a shame breasts have become the leading actor," the Xinhua news agency
said in a commentary.
"This is a serious attack on women," fumed an online commentator. "It goes
completely beyond the moral and aesthetic baseline."
The "Clever Girls" advertisement furore followed a controversy over several
actresses who posed nude in support of breast cancer prevention in a lifestyle
magazine in October 2005.
