Local actor Shane Pow, 30, has officially joined Li Nanxing’s artiste management agency LNX Global, five months after the former parted ways with Mediacorp following his second drink driving conviction in April.

He finished serving his five-week jail sentence last month.

In an interview with 8world, Shane shared that he still keeps in touch with his former colleagues and celebrity pals. While there are no upcoming Mediacorp productions for him in the pipeline, he hopes that The Heartland Hero, in which he was replaced by James Seah after leaving the TV station, “won’t be [his] last drama”.

Being in prison gave Shane a lot of time to think about a lot of things, especially about what career he could turn to if he could never act again.

“I studied mass communication and thought about being a travel blogger, but I can’t go anywhere right now ‘cos of the pandemic,” he mused. “I like to cook so I also thought about getting a licence and going into the culinary industry. I even considered becoming a fitness coach or doing investments. I thought of all kinds of things.”

Fortunately, his showbiz dreams have been saved from being entirely crushed thanks to LNX Global and he has a supportive boss to boot, with Nanxing urging audiences to give Shane “the time and opportunity to start over”.

“After all, who has never made a mistake before? Nobody is perfect,” said the 56-year-old star, whose company also manages Constance Song and Julie Tan.

In another interview with Lianhe Zaobao, Shane admitted that when he was first caught drink driving in September last year, he didn’t just fail to inform Mediacorp, he also kept it from his own mother until right before the news reports came out almost eight months later.

“It wouldn’t make a difference whether she found out earlier or later,” he said. “If she knew about it a day earlier, then she would worry for one extra day, and there was no need to put such pressure on her.”

Although Mama Pow didn’t exactly take the news very well, Shane told AsiaOne that he still did his best to reassure her that he was going to be fine in prison.

During his time behind bars, Shane had to get used to “time really crawling” and not having much to do aside from eating, sleeping, and reading (he finished 16 books). He was also in isolation for three weeks ‘cos of a COVID outbreak, which drove him “a bit nuts” about halfway through.

Fortunately, his experience with the other inmates was very positive. After his 21 days of isolation, he was shifted to a temporary holding for a while, and then to another cell with seven other inmates, whom he described as “really nice people” who made his last few days in jail “slightly bearable”.

Calling himself “lucky” ‘cos his cellmates were “very welcoming”, Shane recalled being very touched when they offered to take care of him during their “yard time”, which was when all the inmates would go outside and mix around for an hour each day.

“I barely know these people but they cared enough to ask how I was feeling,” he said.

Throughout this whole ordeal (actually, even way before it started), there’s been one question on kaypoh netizens’ minds: Are Shane and his girlfriend, 987FM DJ Kimberly Wang, still together? After all, there’s been a noticeable decrease in PDA from the couple on their socials.

When 8world tried to broach this topic, Shane insisted on not discussing anything about his personal life. He even “begged” the reporter to stop asking about the two of them.

Instead, he quickly changed the subject and thanked Pornsak for his help and support. The Thai-born host was the one who got Shane on board as a streamer for Mdada.live, the online social commerce platform Pornsak founded with celeb hairstylist Addy Lee and actress Michelle Chia.

“If it weren’t for him and the encouragement of my friends, fans, and audiences who continue to support me, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of this low point so quickly,” Shane declared.

Photos: 8world, Shane Pow/Instagram, Kimberly Wang/Instagram