A singer who plays a mentor on a reality TV talent show has apologized after an online backlash to a social media post decried as homophobic by netizens and LGBT rights’ groups.
Eric Kwok, a mentor on Viu TV’s Good Night Show — King Maker, moved to quell the outrage over his Instagram post last Sunday, which he insisted wasn’t intended to be homophobic but simply poorly phrased and lacking context.
The post in question was a throwback to an old episode of the show, which is loosely based on a South Korea’s Produce 101, where contestants form a singing group and the public votes for their favorite members, choose the crew’s name, concept, debut song etc.
Beside a photo of Kwok with the participants, capturing a moment that was not reportedly broadcast, Kwok wrote:
“This was a memorable day. I’ll never forget when I walked into the room, the first thing I asked these boys was, “Raise ur hand if you are not gay!”
The post — which was removed after the backlash — raised the ire of LGBT rights groups including the Big Love Alliance, which took to Facebook to question the relevancy of homosexual performers having to disclose their sexuality for reality TV.
“What is the relationship between one’s sexual identity and whether or not they are qualified to work in the entertainment industry?” the post stated.
The flurry of media coverage prompted Kwok to post a statement on his Facebook and Instagram explaining what he said was the context of the remarks and apologizing for not being more clear.
He said the meeting was how to handle, and react to, controversial questions from the press. It was not intended as a joke, he said, later adding he was not homophobic, respected gay people and was “as liberal as it gets.”
“In this meeting many other hard questions had been thrown at the students as well, whether ur a virgin or not, whether you have paid to buy ‘likes’ on the internet, whether you have sexually harassed others, etc. So it was in this context I asked such a question,” he wrote.
“I posted it saying it was a “memorable” day because it was my first time asking these controversial questions in public. I should have explained it better in my post.”
Yep, should’ve.
