Actor David Choe of the television show "Beef" is receiving flak over a previously unreleased podcast interview from 2014 in which he discussed sexually assaulting a masseuse.
Choe's remarks have resurfaced in the aftermath of his portrayal of Isaac Cho in the recently released Netflix series "Beef," which is starred by actors Ali Wong and Steven Yuen and has garnered positive reviews.
Following the premiere of the popular Netflix series on April 6, the video has been making the rounds online. In it, Choe describes having an erection during a massage and engaging in sex activities both with and in front of the masseuse, whom he refers to as Rose.
Transcripts of the video that BuzzFeed News released after it was first released in 2014 show Choe confessing to forcing Rose to engage in a sex act she was "definitely not into" while masturbating during the massage. Choe acknowledged that this was "rapey behaviour," but denied that he was a rapist.
Journalist Aura Bogado shared the entire interview from Choe's podcast, DVDASA, to Twitter. On Sunday, she tweeted that the video had been removed after someone claiming to be Choe requested Twitter to do so due to copyright issues.
In addition, Bogado tweeted a portion of the interview that, according to her, was taken down from TikTok for breaking community rules.
Choe characterises the masseuse as "half Black, half White" in the interview tapes that have been preserved on social media. She also talks about how she got excited by "the thrill of possibly going to jail."
Asa Akira, the podcast's co-host, says, "You're basically telling us that you're a rapist now, and the only way to get your dick really hard is rape," to which Choe replies, "Yeah," before describing himself as "a successful rapist."
After the interview received negative feedback in 2014, Choe submitted a statement to the podcast's now-defunct website in which he denied being a rapist and said the story was not factual or "a representation of my reality," according to BuzzFeed News.
In 2017, after the term "rapist" was spray-painted on a mural Choe had painted in New York City, the successful graffiti artist published another remark regarding the interview on Instagram.