Malaysian-born Hongkong-based actress Jacquelin Ch’ng recently made headlines after a video of her seemingly smoking indoors went viral. 

In the clip, the 45-year-old actress-turned-influencer was hanging out with some friends in a restaurant and was seen with a cigar in her hand.

She was vibing to Taiwanese band EggPlantEgg's 2017 Hokkien hit 'Back Here Again' while passing the cigar to a guy friend sitting next to her.

The OP of the video captioned: "Jacquelin Ch’ng and her shameless friends were smoking cigar in a restaurant, do they think they own the place? So selfish."

Smoking indoors has been banned in Hong Kong for close to 20 years, which explains why Jacquelin was very quickly flamed for her behaviour.

Some, however, think that the group must have gotten permission from the restaurant owner to be able to smoke there so publicly.

Others pointed out that the fine is merely HK$1500 (S$250), which can be considered a small sum to Jacquelin, the daughter of late Malaysian tycoon Bill Ch’ng Chong Poh.

To make matters worse, Jacquelin subsequently shared a photo she took of a lady at the restaurant that day.

"I have a friend who wants to know this lady. Can you guys be a matchmaker, does anyone know who she is?" she wrote in her post. 

Sounds innocuous, right? Hong Kong media, however, speculated that that was Jacquelin's way of calling out the person who filmed her and her friends, which, once again, triggered netizens.

Many criticised that not only did Jacquelin, who's a public figure, not apologise for what she did, she even publicly shamed and threatened the person who exposed her.

The aggravated backlash then prompted the actress to delete her post two hours later.

Jacquelin eventually did address the issue when speaking to Hong Kong media Oriental Daily News.

"If I were the one smoking it, how could there be no clips of me actually smoking and puffing the smoke out? I was only helping to pass the cigar around," she insisted.

The actress also claimed that the restaurant was not open for business at that time, which was why the people there were all in a more relaxed state.

"Anyway, I will be more careful next time!" she said. 

As for her 'shaming' and calling out the person who filmed her, Jacquelin explained that that was simply a misunderstanding. 

"A friend forgot what her name was and wanted to find her. I forgot that my private social media account is now tied to my other account and accidentally posted it to the public," she claimed.

When asked if she knows who was the one who filmed them, Jacquelin then tried to shrug the matter off.

"I don't know, probably a friend of the boss! This is such a big misunderstanding, it's hilarious!" she said.

Hm, funny indeed.

Photos: sinchew