Unsettling David Choe interview resurfaces after Beef success on Netflix
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A resurfaced podcast clip shows actor and artist David Choe making concerning comments about an experience with a massage therapist, which he later claimed he’d made up.
Choe plays Isaak, the criminal cousin to Steven Yeun’s Danny in Netflix’s hit dark comedy Beef. Since its release last week, the miniseries has been heaped with praise and is widely considered to be the streaming service’s best show of the year so far.
On Thursday (13 April), investigative journalist Aura Bogado shared a clip from a 2014 recording of an episode of Choe’s now-defunct podcast, DVDASA.
Though the full audio episode is no longer available, a 2014 BuzzFeed report describes the conversation, which includes Choe telling a story about himself touching a female massage therapist without her consent before forcing her to perform oral sex on him.
Choe later stated that the anecdote was a fabrication for the sake of the show.
In the video from the episode, which is currently spreading across social media, Choe tells the story as part of a segment called “Erection Quest”.
“The thrill of possibly going to jail, you know, that’s what achieved the erection quest,” Choe remarks in the clip.
“Ew, you’re basically telling us that you’re a rapist now,” his co-host, adult film star Asa Akira replies.
After the podcast episode was released in March 2014, Choe issued an apology the following month and stated that the story was completely untrue and was relayed for entertainment purposes only.
“If I am guilty of anything, it’s bad storytelling in the style of douche,” he wrote in a post on his website, which is now defunct.
“Just like many of my paintings are often misinterpreted, the same goes with my show. The main objective of all of my podcasts is to challenge and provoke my friends and the co-stars on the show.”
Choe’s statement continues with a description of the podcast as a “dark, tasteless, completely irreverent show”.
“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!”
As well as his role as Isaak in Beef, Choe created the visual artwork for the title cards of each episode.
The Independent has reached out to Choe and Akira for further comment.
