[imagesource:netflix]

BEEF has been lauded as one of the best series on Netflix this year, it’s just a pity one of its main stars is so deplorable.

Nonetheless, the producers and creators are standing by actor David Choe, the guy who played Danny’s in-and-out-of-prison cousin Isaac.

The controversy was unleashed after a resurfacing of a viral 2014 podcast video during which Choe claimed to have sexually assaulted a masseuse.

Choe has allegedly been taking measures to prevent the clip from being shared on social media, but that hasn’t stopped the story from spreading far and wide.

IndieWire reports that in the clip of Choe’s former podcast – called DVDASA, which stands for Double Vag, Double Anal, Sensitive Artist — he makes an unfortunate “joke” about a non-consensual sexual encounter. Choe says he was just trying to rile everyone up with the fabricated nonsense, including adult film star and podcast co-host Asa Akira:

“She’s [the masseuse he said he forced to perform oral sex] not into it but she’s not stopping it either,” Choe said (via Vice). “I take the back of her head and push it down on my dick, and she doesn’t do it, and then I go ‘open your mouth’ and she does it, and then I start face fucking her.”

He continued: “With the rape stuff…I mean, I would have been in a lot of trouble right now if I put her hand on my dick and she’s like, ‘Fucking stop I’m gonna go call security.’ That would have been a much different story. But the thrill of possibly going to jail, that’s what achieved the erection quest…I just want to make it clear that I admit that that’s rapey behavior. But I am not a rapist.”

In 2014, Choe issued a statement clarifying that the story was fabricated for the podcast as a “complete extension of my art”:

“If I am guilty of anything, it’s bad storytelling in the style of douche. Just like many of my paintings are often misinterpreted, the same goes with my show,” Choe said. “The main objective of all of my podcasts is to challenge and provoke my friends and the co-stars on the show. We fuck with each other, entertain ourselves and laugh at each other. It’s a dark, tasteless, completely irreverent show where we fuck with everyone listening, but mostly ourselves. 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! In a world full of horrible people, thank god for us.”

Yikes, dude. Way to put yourself in a hole. In fact, that’s what he claims he was trying to do.

In a separate 2017 post, he reiterated that he might have said those words but he never ever committed those actions, adding that “I was a sick person at the height of my mental illness, and have spent the last 3 years in mental health facilities healing myself and dedicating my life to helping and healing others through love and action”.

In 2021, he told the New York Times that he was actively looking for rock bottom:

“At that time in my life, I was done with life and chasing a bottom. I wanted out,” Choe said. “I never raped anyone.”

Instead, the story was birthed from the “morbid curiosity to feel an external response to the internal shame I felt,” with Choe concluding, “It was strangely comforting to be so despised. It matched how I felt about myself for the first time.”

This has added real karmic value to BEEF, which revolves around how one’s terrible choices come back to bite them.

Anyway, the show’s creator Lee Sung Jin and fellow executive producers Ali Wong and Steven Yeun have finally responded to the brewing controversy surrounding their co-star. Hollywood Reporter notes that the statement was first released to Vanity Fair:

“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.”

Choe is friends with both Wong and Yeun and was invited to take the part by Lee, in addition to providing art for the title credits of the 10-episode show.

Forgiving and forgetting then. Hopefully, there’s not actually a victim squirming at the news of all this right now.

[sources:hollywoodreporter&indiewire]