The internet has some serious beef with David Choe. The street artist—who famously took stock instead of cash (opens in new tab) for his murals at Facebook’s headquarters and currently co-stars with SF native Ali Wong in the new critically acclaimed Netflix series Beef—is under fire after Twitter users rediscovered a 2014 podcast (opens in new tab) interview in which Choe calls himself a “successful rapist.”
In a clip of the interview, surfaced by investigative journalist Aura Bogado (opens in new tab) from Choe’s now-defunct podcast DVDASA (which refers to a pornographic sex act), Choe recounts in graphic detail a sexual encounter with a massage therapist to his co-host and porn performer Asa Akira. In the clip reviewed by Vice’s Motherboard verticle (opens in new tab), Choe describes forcing a masseuse to touch his penis (opens in new tab) and coercing her into performing oral sex.
“You’re basically telling us that you’re a rapist right now, and the only way to get your dick hard is rape,” Akira responded. To which Choe replied, “Yeah.”
“I just want to make it clear that I admit that that’s rapey behavior,” Choe also said on the podcast. “But I am not a rapist.”
In a 2014 statement (opens in new tab) about the incident, Choe said that the anecdote was a fabrication and piece of “bad storytelling,” writing, “I am not a rapist. I hate rapists. I think rapists should be raped and murdered.”
A self-described “liar,” “thief” and “gambler” (opens in new tab) Choe often attributes his outrageous and provocative remarks to his persona as an artist (opens in new tab) and “unreliable narrator (opens in new tab),” and his FX show The Choe Show has been described as “part interview, part performance art and part therapy session (opens in new tab).”
But the internet is not taking any of Choe’s words lightly, with online commentators calling Choe’s resurfaced comments “horrific & violent (opens in new tab).”
The Beef star has since issued take-down requests of the clip posted to social media, citing copyright infringement, and the clip has been removed from platforms (opens in new tab) such as Twitter. A copy of the video, which was previously viewable on Bogado’s TikTok account without sound, is “currently unavailable (opens in new tab).”
Outrage is so high that some viewers of Beef are threatening to boycott the show and are putting pressure (opens in new tab) on co-stars Wong and Steven Yeun to speak out on Choe’s comments.
Wong has since made her tweets private (opens in new tab). Choe did not respond to The Standard’s request for comment.