The biggest scandal of 2010 brought entertainer Luna Maya’s world crashing down. The trouble’s not over yet, but the experience has taught her a thing or two.
Luna Maya’s reversal of fortune following the celebrity sex video scandal she was swept up in mid-year was swift and merciless. Literally overnight, she lost advertising endorsements, TV appearances and, not least, her good reputation, all due to grainy footage purportedly showing her with boyfriend Nazril Irham, better known as Ariel Peterpan.
Before the scandal broke, Luna seemed to be everywhere as a sought-after advertising spokeswoman and the host of Dahsyat, one of the most popular weekday morning pop music TV shows – and reportedly one of entertainment’s highest paid performers. Since June’s frenzy of publicity, she has been conspicuously absent from the airwaves, save for the occasional infotainment update on her visits to Ariel, now in police custody.
The 27-year-old denies she was laid low by depression or lying low out of fear – she’s simply been taking some time out.
“I’ve haven’t been anywhere, I’ve been here at home in Jakarta and Bali,” says Luna, who grew up on the resort island, the daughter of an Indonesian father and Austrian mother. “Some parties didn’t renew my contracts or severed them, so that may have given that impression. But I was still around.”
She was also dealing with the continuing and complicated legal entanglements (Ariel, who also allegedly appeared in another video with TV show presenter Cut Tari, is currently detained in Bandung on charges of distribution of pornographic materials; Luna is required to make regular reports to the police).
Gradually, though, she is returning to the entertainment scene. There is her new single, “Tak Bisa Bersamamu” (Can’t Be With You), seemingly a poignant testimonial to her relationship with Ariel today. And she was on the cover of women’s lifestyle magazine Clara in November.
On a cloudy Islamic New Year’s Day, she is back making a TV series at a golf course in East Jakarta. It may seem a risk for the production house to bank on using this now tarnished star to draw viewers, especially among a judgmental public not likely to quickly forgive or forget.
In person, she still draws attention – for whatever reason. After slipping through the club lobby almost unnoticed in dark glasses and leggings to the hair and makeup room, she emerges an hour later in heels, blouse and pencil skirt, an undeniably pretty young woman.
The club’s cook gestures to get her attention as she walks by. A portly middle-aged man, sitting contentedly with his posse in a corner, requests a photo with her. “A bit later,” Luna says politely as she moves on.
Don’t Bring Me Down
On one level, Luna understands the public fascination with the videos – and their glee in seeing celebrities cut down to size. The fascination was heightened by the involvement of Ariel and herself, the country’s favorite on-again-off-again celebrity couple of recent years. Luna’s own occasional run-ins with infotainment journalists simply added to the combustible mix.
Sharing, watching and commenting on the videos became the national pastime – watching consenting adults without their consent – before the inevitable condemnation of the three celebrities.
“I think that people like to see those who are successful suffer a bit,” she says, without any bitterness. “They want to find their weak point. It’s not just for me, they also like to see it with a president. I just think that if there is someone who is trying to bring me down, I don’t want to be beaten by them.
“The only one who can bring me down is myself. I’m not being conceited here, but I don’t want an injustice to destroy me.”
The furor quickly went international; the Huffington Post noted it was Indonesia’s first real celebrity sex video scandal (ignoring assorted bedroom frolics between politicians and small-time singers, all before the Pornography Law took effect). None other than US teen superstar Justin Bieber was prompted to comment on the cheekily dubbed “peterporn” trending topic on Twitter, as did Japanese porn star Miyabi, who has a large following in Indonesia.
For Luna, one of the toughest lessons was learning who her fair-weather friends were.
“I was shocked at how people can change in one day. When we are on top, they are so good to us, but as soon as we have a problem they aren’t there for us or they bad-mouth us incessantly,” she says.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about why people suddenly felt they had to get involved in Luna’s life. And those who were continually commenting on me, saying how terrible I was.”
Of course, the flip side was that she also learned who she could really count on.
“All my best friends and family have been amazing,” says Luna, whose father is deceased. “Of course, Ariel has been my strength from the beginning, even now when he is facing a more difficult time and is in prison. My mother, too, but she is bule so sometimes she doesn’t understand the way we think as Indonesians, the conservativeness, how we tend to bring religion into matters, while for foreigners religion is a very private matter.”
She admits she considered leaving the country. At one point, a darker thought crossed her mind.
“I was thinking, what if I just disappeared, not left the country, but I just wasn’t here anymore. Would people be happier? But I thought, well, this is life, there’s ups and downs. I want to survive this, try to be a better person, live my life and resolve this problem the best way I can.”
Taking a Stand
Luna says that standing up for what she believes is right has helped her cope with the fallout. In an exclusive TV interview given by the couple at the outset of the scandal in June, Luna had declared, “We’re the victims here.”
It’s a position she steadfastly maintains, and the details of how the videos came to be distributed remain murky and shrouded in rumor (Luna has publicly apologized for causing “unease” among the Indonesian public due to the video, although she has never stated whether it is her in the film).
“I don’t know why or how to put it in words,” she says of how she faced the scandal. “I’m someone who just doesn’t want to be defeated by news, or intimidated by what others choose to put out about me.”
Luna was no stranger to controversy. In December 2009, after an angry confrontation with infotainment journalists while she was with Ariel’s young daughter, she tweeted that the reporters were lower than prostitutes and murderers.
“The media has a very big, important and powerful role, but if I don’t feel comfortable with what they are doing, then I don’t think that as a public figure I just have to accept it,” she says. “I knew I was in the wrong, too, I said sorry, but I was trying to protect myself. I was very disappointed, and I was quite emotional. But for me it was an issue between us as people.”
She still considers herself a born-and-bred Indonesian, someone who attended state schools and started her modeling career the old-fashioned Indonesian way as a teen cover model. But critics could accuse her of being disingenuous in appearing not to understand the consequences of her actions in this collective society, whether caused by an emotionally charged tweet or a failure to realize that what goes on behind closed doors can eventually become public property.
Yet while Luna may pride herself on being true to her beliefs, she does acknowledge that recent events have taught her to be more circumspect in what she says and does.
She says she has learned that art from Ariel, who rarely makes public comments and only opens up about his feelings in his hit songs.
“He is very careful about what he does, he’s a thinker, while I’m someone who says straight out, ‘I don’t like this’,” she says. “We kind of balance each other.”
She ponders if that straightforwardness is a sure way of making enemies in non-confrontational Indonesian society.
“I guess I’m half and half, with the directness of my mother. There are some Indonesians who cannot accept that way, and I need to learn more about doing small talk. Well, I’m trying,” she adds with a laugh.
At the outset of the scandal, Luna asked for police protection. She says her request became complicated, because, “there were too many people using it as their stage”.
She reflects on the aims of her critics, of the people who have burned images of her and Ariel, called for the singer to be executed and blamed the distribution of the sex videos for several rape and molestation cases by minors against minors.
“It makes me sad,” she says. “We’re no different; we come into this world naked and we’ll leave it the same, in a funeral shroud. Why don’t we embrace those who have done wrong, or help them on the right path? I am Muslim, and the religion I know and studied is full of love. It doesn’t teach us to shout on the street and pass judgment on others. I’m sad that in my own country I cannot feel secure.”
But she also says she does not hold a grudge against those who have condemned her.
“There is no point in being vengeful. It just hurts you because how you feel about them reflects who you really are. That hatred will just eat away at your soul and end up killing you.”
Happy Days
Much good has come from all the drama and pain of the past few months, Luna says, as she was forced to relax for the first time in years.
“I’ve learned how to deal better with people, but most of all I’m much happier today. I can appreciate life more. Before, I only thought about work, work, work. Now I spend time with my family in Bali, and I’m also focusing on my business, which I hadn’t really had time for recently.”
In November, she took in a performance of Joko Anwar’s hit musical Onrop at Taman Ismail Marzuki. It’s a satirical it-could-happen-here allegory of a future Indonesia where women must conform to a 9 p.m. curfew and prim dress code, and gays are pushed firmly back into the closet. Those who run afoul of the corrupt morality policy risk being exiled to Onrop (porno spelled backward) Island, where the “degenerates” exist in an idyllic world of tolerance and respect.
“I saw Joko and he said, ‘Luna, this one is for you, and me’,” she says.
She does not care if people say she will have to start from the bottom again in the entertainment industry – “I don’t mind doing that, let people say what they want”. She adds that Ariel had considered going to the UK, where he had received a scholarship to study music.
“I thought I’d go along with him. There are a lot of things I could do, even working in a restaurant would be fun.”
The couple’s marriage plans have been deferred until all the legal issues are resolved. For now, Luna says that she simply wants to be happy in her life. If she hopes for anything, it’s a better, more tolerant Indonesia.
“I just want there to be more love in this country. We already experience so many difficulties, so why not spread more love instead of hatred and war? A mistake is something we can learn from, not just me but many members of Indonesian society. If we all come together and are responsible then it will be for the better, instead of bringing each other down by pointing out our flaws. Nobody’s perfect.”
What if she could go back in time and miraculously change things?
“No, why should I?” she says with a smile. “[I’d change] nothing at all. Because I believe that I’m now richer than other people. Not materially, and I know there will be many people who think, ‘oh, she doesn’t have any jobs now’. But in my spirituality and experiences, there are not many people who have gone through what I have.”
She pauses for a moment. “Consider that I have passed the test.”
