On social media, fans are criticizing Jimmy Kimmel, an American television host and comedian, for reportedly making another racist remark about the South Korean band BTS on the most recent episode of his talk program ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live.’
A video of Jimmy Kimmel equating the spread of dangerous COVID-19 strains to big bands like Backstreet Boys and One Direction is making the rounds on the internet. While he did not specifically mention BTS, the implication was clear to fans of the K-Pop group. “These variations, all the many varieties in the globe right now,” Kimmel remarked in his monologue, “remind me of the boy bands in the late 1990s and early 2000s.”
“Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were the major ones, and then O-Town and 98 Degrees came up. The JoBros appeared, Big Time Rush, and they continued to split off into separate groups, finally forming One Direction. And they grabbed parts of it and spread it over the planet until we finally get at one that is so contagious that it wipes out all life on Earth “He came to a conclusion.
Twitterati blasted him for reportedly making nasty remarks about the band and making light of a sensitive topic like COVID-19 just hours after the video went popular on the internet. “”I just don’t understand how they created the screenplay, approved it, and placed it on TV with no one criticizing it like there are so many people dying of COVID and this guy is like “ha-ha boybands!!” Am I correct? what the hell is going on? “a Twitter user said.
“How this is 2022 & we are not enough educated yet to say this wrong & someone like him shouldn’t have a platform longer,” a BTS fan said. Another fan said, “He’s enraged, and BTS was only there once? I’m relieved they don’t go there anymore.” “Racism is not a laughingstock. Covid19 is not a comedic event. #RacistJimmyKimmel, “a Twitter user said
This follows his comparison of COVID-19’s spread to ‘BTS fever’ in an interview with ‘Emily in Paris’ star Ashley Park. Park gushed on his show about how it seemed like a dream when numerous members of the K-Pop group tweeted her number on social media while discussing her ‘Dynamite’ cover. She also mentioned her COVID-19 diagnosis.
Meanwhile, Kimmel was chastised for jokingly comparing Park’s symptoms to COVID-19 “You mistook BTS fever for something else. They’re both quite hazardous. You’re lucky to have survived both of them.”
