After their scathing headline, Billboard is on fire with over 100,000 tweets under #BillboardRacist.
On ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, singer and actress Ashley Park’s appearance was twisted from talking about South Korean boyband BTS and linking them to the ongoing pandemic, COVID-19. The host, Jimmy Kimmel, commented on Park’s fangirling and said some distasteful remarks after the actress shared her excitement on BTS’ RM shared his reaction on her cover of Dynamite, and even V shared the scene on his account.
The actress revealed that at that time, she was left speechless. Later on, she revealed being diagnosed with the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 Virus. Kimmel linked BTS and said, “You thought it was BTS fever. They’re both very dangerous. You’re lucky to come out of those alive.”
If that’s not enough, a writer of Billboard set the actress in a very offensive tweet and headline that further sparked Asian hate. The tweet read, “According to Ashley Park, the symptoms of interacting with a BTS member are eerily similar to those of COVID-19.” Then, in the writer’s article headline, they wrote, “Ashley Park Thought She Was Going Into Shock Over BTS, But It Was Actually COVID.”
Many ARMYs came to the defense of Park, who saw the interview and stated that Kimmel and Billboard’s writer both practiced unprofessional journalism. They set up the Korean-American singer-actress for defamation, comparing her pride and passion for other Asian artists as “dangerous” and a disease.
Park’s camp and HYBE haven’t responded to Billboard’s defamatory content. ARMYs are trending #StopAsianHate to show how they refuse to make anti-Asian rhetoric the center of western comedy.
