ACTRESS Nur Afifah Nasir admitted that she felt used by the Izinkan Aku Mencintaimu production crew to “sweet talk” married Singaporean singer-actor Aliff Aziz, who had been occasionally late and sometimes missing from the film set.
What was supposed to be a less-than-a-month filming period has now dragged on to close to two months.
She said it was the production team that had sought her help to just follow Aliff’s “little demands and requests” so that he would be persuaded to follow Afifah’s schedule for the drama series.
“The karaoke session was part of the plan to encourage him to do so. We all just want to wrap up filming fast, that’s all,” Afifah said at a press conference at Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
“However, when the controversy broke out, no one from the team dared to come forward to back me up,” she said.
Afifah is the actress in the middle of the controversy involving Aliff and his wife, Dayang Nabellah Awang Astillah, who is also known as Bella.
On July 27, Aliff was alleged to have assaulted his wife at a karaoke centre after he was caught in a room with Afifah.
When the scandal broke and went viral on social media, many Netizens called on Afifah to apologise to Bella.
Afifah, however, admitted that it was wrong for her to allow Aliff to hold her hand; the act which was captured by the karaoke’s closed-circuit television camera. The footage went viral almost instantaneously.
“I admit it was my fault for letting him touch my hand and I apologise to Bella for that,” she said.
Afifah said the press conference was also to clear the air, and that she had no intention of prolonging the matter.
“I have no intention of blaming anyone for the incident.
“I just want to move on and I hope everyone will put this past them, and focus on the remaining three days of filming,” said the younger sister of actress Anzalna.
Also at the press conference, the media was privy to a recording of a telephone conversation between Anzalna and a production crew member on their plan to organise the karaoke session.
“The karaoke session was supposed to be for all of us (the cast and crew of the drama series), as we were nearing the end of filming,” she said.
Afifah said it was Aliff who had suggested that they go to that particular karaoke outlet as it was only 10 minutes away from the filming location in Hulu Langat, Selangor.
“However, Bella showed up before the rest of the cast and crew arrived,” said the 24-year-old artiste, who played the wife of Aliff’s character in the drama series.
Afifah has been under such public scrutiny that the word “Afifah Nasir” even made it into the Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced online dictionary of slang words and phrases.
She admitted that since the incident, she had been emotionally affected.
“I’ve been crying almost every day. Not because I’ve been targeted by angry Netizens, but because I feel stupid for agreeing to go for the karaoke session,” she said.
Also present at the press conference were her sister, Mia, fellow actress Allana Amir, her lawyer, Sana Tufil Ahmad, and her supportive boyfriend, Wan Ariff Wan Azhar, 24.