Edison Chen said he hid in the trunks of taxis, almost starving for oxygen, when last year's sex photos of him with female celebrities hit the Internet.

The actor, who returned to Hong Kong last week after self-exile abroad following the scandal, told CNN: 'I was afraid to go anywhere. I was travelling around, when I was still in Hong Kong, in trunks of taxis, literally, just to get to places. I had to be in the trunk for 15 minutes. I didn't even know if I had enough oxygen, to be honest with you.

'Even when I had left Asia and I had gone to Canada and America, it took me three months to really get out of the shell that I had put myself in. I mean, I was in darkness for five days. I had my drapes closed and I didn't even want to go anywhere.'

His interview with CNN's Talk Asia host Anjali Rao will air on CNN (StarHub Channel 14) at 8.30pm tonight and excerpts were released on Monday. He said: 'I believed I was a victim. I believed that I was hurt by this a lot... I knew that I had nothing to do with the spreading of these photos. I can't say I didn't do anything wrong... But I also believe that at the same time that I wasn't the perpetrator and I had suffered a lot from this as well.'

He said, legally, he could only comment now as the trial was over after technician Sze Ho Chun was last month sentenced to jail for stealing the 1,300 photographs from his laptop.

Ex-lover Cecilia Cheung had blasted him for ignoring her after the scandal broke but he said: 'I don't really want to have a back and forth with her, which is why I didn't really comment on what she had said before. I wasn't allowed to talk to her initially because of the police request and they were investigating me, which already had troubled me a lot... I really do feel sorry. I really am sorry to her.'

He added that he hoped she could forgive him 'either today or one day, and she'll understand that I had my difficulties'.

He said he did not speak to any of the girls in the photographs as 'initially it was because I couldn't find them. Secondly, it was because I didn't really know how to approach them and what to say, to be honest with you'.

He admitted more than 1,300 photographs were taken but said: 'Everything was mutual. It was all consensual. If I have a camera in front of your face and there's a flash, do you know that I'm taking a photo of you? That's as simple as it is.'

On why he now wants to resurrect his career, he said the media erred in saying he would quit showbiz forever. 'I actually said indefinitely... That could mean five minutes, it can mean 2,000 years. I never said forever.'