Hoang Thuy Linh (AKA Paris Hilton of Vietnam) Lost TV Show

She is the Paris Hilton of Vietnam. Hoang Thuy Linh has scandalised the conservative nation after a sex video with her boyfriend was posted on the Internet.

Unlike Hilton, however, Hoang Thuy Linh, 19, is unlikely to capitalise from the scandal as her show has been cancelled and she has been forced to make a tearful apology.

"I made a mistake, a terrible mistake,'' said the doe-eyed teen, who had cultivated a good-girl image. "I apologise to you, my parents, my teachers and my friends.''

Linh, who stars in the Vietnamese television series Vanh Anh Diaries, is now facing consequences due to the sex tape leaked on the internet. Days after the video leaked, Vietnam Television (VTV) dropped the series, according to BBC News.

Police have arrested four students accused of posting the video of the teenage TV soap star having sex with her boyfriend.

Authorities this week announced the arrests of the four Hanoi men and women, aged between 21 and 25. They would be held for three months pending an inquiry.

They will be held for three months pending an investigation, Thanh Nien newspaper said.

Hoang Thuy Linh, the lead actress of Vang Anh's Diary, was at the centre of a storm nearly two weeks ago when Internet users downloaded the clip, which initially ran for five minutes, from a video-sharing website and began circulating it.

Vietnam state television canned her popular nightly show after the clip was revealed.

The soap, an interactive youth drama in its second season, offered lessons on teenage issues and allowed viewers to vote on moral and lifestyle questions by mobile text message and email.

It had been controversial in the communist country, praised by some for addressing youth issues but criticised by others for focusing on the concerns of the fashionable, urban middle-class elite.

Authorities believe the clip was stolen from the laptop of Linh's boyfriend. Linh and her boyfriend, the son of a senior police official, would not face charges, Hanoi police director Nguyen Duc Nhanh told Phap Luat Ho Chi Minh City newspaper.

Hilton's sex tape, made with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon, surfaced just before the start of her reality TV series, The Simple Life and helped propel her to superstardom.

But the backlash against the Vietnamese star has been strong.

"I ban my children from watching the (TV) drama, because I don't want them to act like her," Huynh Dung, of Saigon, told the Thanh Nien daily.

"It could not be considered a mistake. It was the essential result of her debauched lifestyle," Dung said.

Sex education, a taboo topic in Vietnam, is not included in classroom instruction.

Police in Hanoi arrested a man on Wednesday with 170 VCDs of the clip as they tried to halt sales of the footage, which is widely available on the black market.