The team behind hit Netflix drama Beef have gone on record to respond to the controversy surrounding comments made by the show’s co-star David Choe.
Steven Yeun and Ali Wong and creator Lee Sung Jin released a statement after Choe’s comments resurfaced where he admitted to “rapey behavior.”
“The story David Choe fabricated nine years ago is undeniably hurtful and extremely disturbing. We do not condone this story in any way, and we understand why this has been so upsetting and triggering. We’re aware David has apologized in the past for making up this horrific story, and we’ve seen him put in the work to get the mental health support he needed over the next decade to better himself and learn from his mistakes,” the trio said in a statement first released to Vanity Fair.
Earlier this week, it emerged that Choe had protected himself using copyright laws to his favor following backlash over the resurfaced audio.
The audio from the now-defunct podcast DVDASA from a 2014 episode were recirculated given that Choe stars in Netflix’s Beef. In the clips shared on Twitter, Choe makes some serious statements retelling a story where he forced a masseuse into performing oral sex on the actor.
“She’s not into it but she’s not stopping it either,” he says in the clip, according to Motherboard.
When co-host Asa Akira concluded that Choe was “basically telling us that you’re a rapist right now,” the actor replied with a “Yeah.”
He then said, “I just want to make it clear that I admit that that’s rapey behavior, but I am not a rapist.”
After the clips went viral, Choe seemingly shield himself under copyright laws to have Twitter take down the videos. Writer Meecham Whitson Meriweather shared screenshots of the notice from Twitter informing them that they had removed the media for infringing on their copyrighted works.
Meriweather further shared another set of screenshots where Twitter attached the e-mail complaint signed by David Choe “on behalf of the David Young Choe Foundation” citing the Twitter users that shared the audios.
Back in 2014 when the podcast was first released, Choe had already addressed the backlash and denied that the story was real.
“I never thought I’d wake up one late afternoon and hear myself called a rapist. It sucks. Especially because I am not one. I am not a rapist. I hate rapists,” Choe said in a statement that was shared by Buzzfeed at the time.
He went on to describe what his podcast was about saying, “We create stories and tell tales. It’s not a news show. It’s not a representation of my reality. It’s not the place to come for reliable information about me or my life. It’s my version of reality, it’s art that sometimes offends people. I’m sorry if anyone believed that the stories were fact. They were not!”
