A breakdown of Super Junior Heechul’s controversial livestream

Super Junior’s Heechul landed in some hot waters after his allegedly careless remarks during a recent live broadcast while intoxicated.

On February 9, 2023, K-pop idol Kim Heechul joined BJ Choi Goon’s live broadcast on AfreecaTV as a special guest while being inebriated. Here, he made certain offensive remarks that spread like wildfire on social media, with netizens condemning the idol for his careless behavior.

This is not the first time his sharp mouth has landed him in controversy. However, this time, despite BJ Choi trying to dissuade him from speaking his mind by muting his microphone, Heechul went on to make numerous controversial statements.

Although he has issued an apology on his Instagram over the issue, many people were unhappy with his half-hearted apology as they don’t believe that he thinks he has done anything wrong. The Super Junior member wrote:

"I apologize the most to the fans who have been hurt because of the issue I have caused. But no matter how I try to look back on it, I don’t think I was wrong in cursing that specific site as well as school violence."

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Super Junior’s Heechul’s offensive comments on his recent livestream have angered several netizens

1) Cursing a pro-woman site

The K-pop idol heavily criticized a site called Yeoseong Shidae, which has been termed a feminist website. Many male-dominated websites have called out Yeoseong Shidae for being too extremist in their support for women. There are cons to the website, as many people on the site have reportedly harassed celebrities, including many boy groups as well as Heechul. Still, the website mostly gets hate from incels and misogynists in the online community.

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2) Absence from group events

Heechul confirmed that he purposely chose not to attend an overseas Super Junior schedule, citing illness because he wanted to stay back in South Korea and attend BJ Choi Goon’s birthday party. Netizens were furious at the statement because the artist chose not to do his job and was deceiving fans for false reasons.

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3) Bokyeom controversy

The idol openly expressed his support for Bokyeom, another popular BJ in South Korea who caters to a mostly male-dominated audience. He was reprimanded by netizens for his misogynistic signature greeting, “bo-yiru,” which sounds similar to a derogatory word used to refer to female genitalia. Moreover, the idol sounded outraged during the livestream of Bokyeom’s boycott by women and sympathizers.

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4) Name-dropping Cha Eunwoo

The singer claimed that he was close to multi-hyphenate Cha Eunwoo and, in a misguided attempt at praising him, he almost painted the idol-actor as a bully. Heechul tried to portray Eunwoo as a masculine person with a strong personality but made him sound aggressive and violent, which didn’t sit well with the latter’s fans.

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5) The “No Japan” movement

Relations between Japan and South Korea have always been tense as the former once colonized the latter, leading to mass brutalities. In 2019, many Koreans started to boycott Japanese goods when tensions between the two nations were at their peak. Heechul mocked the movement in the live broadcast, leading many netizens to criticize his remarks.

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The K-pop idol is known to always speak his mind. However, a slew of insensitive remarks, along with a shoddy apology, has left netizens, wondering if he’s genuinely remorseful about his actions.