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R&B singer Crush best known for his soulful OSTs and his recent collaboration with BTS’ j-hope for the song Rush Hour, has landed himself in major trouble.
On October 10, 2022, Crush performed at the 2022 SOMEDAY PLEMORA Festival and now, an unfortunate incident from the concert has went viral on social media.
In the clip, the Rush Hour singer can be seen greeting fans close to the stage by shaking hands with them and giving them high-fives. However, at one point, he appears to have skipped shaking hands with a couple of Black K-pop fans.
The clip, which was shared by a Twitter user @tulipyeo soon went viral, with fans criticizing Crush for his alleged racist behaviour.
The singer soon after took to his Instagram explaining that he was trying to "ensure fans’ safety" and had "no discriminatory intentions." However, fans were not satisfied with the artist’s apology note and continued bashing him.
Crush’s alleged racist behaviour towards two Black K-pop fans goes viral on social media
Twitter user @tulipyeo shared her experience of attending Crush’s performance at the 2022 SOMEDAY PLEMORA Festival and disclosed that they are a Black K-pop fan who, along with their roommate, had gone to attend the concert where Crush was performing.
At a particular moment, the singer enthusiastically greeted fans close to the stage, shaking hands and giving spontaneous high-fives. However, as alleged in the video shared by @tulipyeo, he ignored them and their roommate, just because they are Black.
The fan revealed that this is the first time they have faced such blatant racism first-hand and that this has left them truly heartbroken, as they were huge fans of the Rush Hour singer.
They further revealed that one of their other friends, who has a lighter skintone, moved her hand away to allow @tulipyeo and their roommate to receive a handshake from the singer. However, he allegedly skipped the two fans and went on to shake hands with their lighter skintone friend.
The supposed roommate, who goes by the username @brinaxv, backed @tulipyeo, sharing that they both were truly heartbroken by this incident.
This viral incident has now sparked a huge outcry amongst K-pop fans on social media, who termed the singer “racist”, while condemning his shameful behaviour.
Several other concert-goers are backing the two Black K-pop fans’ story with their own versions now. One fan alleged that he refused gifts from a Black K-pop fan previously as well.
Neverthless, K-pop fans are extremely upset with the alleged racism and discriminatory behaviour shown by Crush and have termed his behaviour as “disgusting”.
Crush issues an official statement explaining his stance, K-pop fans are unimpressed
Hours later after the viral incident, the Rush Hour singer released an official statement on his personal Instagram explaining his stance, revealing that since
"he was performing for a live audience after two years, he was excited and instinctively walked towards the stage to greet fans close to the stage. As fans were getting too close to the fences and he was worried for their safety, he backed off from giving more high-fives and handshakes."
He went on to state that he "loves all his fans irrespective of their nationality and ethnicity" and will "never show racist or discriminatory behaviour" towards anyone, while sincerely apologizing for this misunderstanding.
K-pop fans however, did not seem to buy his apology and continued criticising him, calling the singer a “big liar”, while stating that Crush should have put up a more honest and sincere apology.
Born Shin Hyo-seob, the Korean artist is a singer-songwriter and producer who dabbles in R&B and hip-hop genres primarily. He debuted on April 1, 2014 with the single, Sometimes and released his debut album, Crush On You, on June 5 that very year.
Some of his most popular works include the track Beautiful from Kim Go-eun and Gong Yoo's drama The Guardian: Lonely and Great God, Sleepless Night featuring Punch from It's Okay, That's Love and No Words from Itaewon Class starring Park Seo-joon.
