PETALING JAYA, July 19 — Datuk Seri Vida may have heaved a sigh of relief after the end of her year-long ‘fake diamonds’ dispute with Astro’s Gegar Vaganza winner in singer Aishah — but it now looks like she may be facing another.
Indonesian singer Firman has now come forward to claim that he was also possibly gifted ‘fakes’ by the cosmetics entrepreneur.
Firman Siagian, 40, told Harian Metro that he believed that the diamond earrings he was presented with for coming in fifth were not genuine.
He said he already had doubts over the authenticity of the earrings claimed to be worth RM30,000 even before he knew about Aishah’s claims.
“Last March my wife and I were in a shopping mall in Bandung, and we happened to walk by a jewellery shop, so I thought I could go have the earrings checked out, in case I ever felt like selling them,” Firman said.
He was told by jewellers that they could not inspect the earrings because he did not possess a certificate of authenticity.
“I told them I did now know anything about a certificate because these were given to me as a gift in a singing competition, but they would not check it,” said Firman.
He initially shrugged it off, his doubts surrounding the authenticity of his prize were confirmed when Aishah was compensated after she publicly called out Datuk Seri Vida for gifting her a fake diamond.
“When I saw the news of her (Aishah) in August 2018 on Youtube, I started having serious doubts.
“Yesterday I saw her getting compensation, and that strengthened my belief that these earrings are fake too.”
He added that immediately after he knew Aishah was compensated, he sent a message via Whatsapp to Vida — to which she did not respond.
Firman said that he would not give up as he plans to have the diamond earrings appraised again, and if they were deemed to be fake, he would ask Vida for compensation as well because “it is within his rights”.
Datuk Seri Vida settled her dispute with Aishah after holding a press conference to publicly apologise at the One World Hotel in Bandar Utama, stating that the whole incident had damaged her business empire.
As per agreement of the mediation between both parties, Vida also compensated the singer with RM80,000 worth of jewellery, as well as picked up the tab for legal costs.
