“Beef” star David Choe has come under fire for resurfaced footage from 2014 where he details his own “rapey behavior” toward a massage therapist — but you won’t find the video online so easily now.
On Thursday, writers Aura Bogado and Meecham Whitson Meriweather both posted clips from “Erection Quest,” an episode of Choe’s podcast “DVDASA” — but both clips were removed on Sunday. Both say they received emails from Twitter alerting them of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices that were filed by Choe himself.
PvNew has reviewed the email sent from Twitter to Meriweather, in which someone alleging to be Choe, writing on behalf of the David Young Choe Foundation, describes Bogado’s and Meriweather’s posts as “copyright infringing media” and asks that they be removed “immediately.”
It’s not the first time Choe’s claims in the video have been brought to light, and he responded to criticism at the time in 2014, saying that his story had been “misinterpreted” and “not a representation of my reality.” (His full statement is below.) And in a New York Times profile in 2014, Choe said, “I never raped anyone.” According to the Times, he said the masseuse story was fictional, and a work of performance art.
In the resurfaced clips, Choe tells his co-host Asa Akira and other guests about an incident in which he got a massage from a therapist he calls Rose. “I’m getting turned on just telling this story,” he says. “I just take her hand and I put it on my dick. She just holds it there.” Akira asks if Rose’s hand was limp, then clarifies that she was “holding it on her own.”
Choe tells a lengthy story involving numerous sexual acts. He ends the X-rated monologue by saying, “The thrill of possibly going to jail, that’s what achieved the erection quest.”
“Ew, you’re basically telling us that you’re a rapist now, and that the only way to get your dick really hard is rape,” Akira says, to which Choe retorts, “Yeah,” before answering the other guests’ questions about Rose’s appearance.
“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” Akira asks. “Who cares what she looks like? Dave is telling us he’s a rapist.”
“A successful rapist,” he jokes.
Produced by A24 and starring Choe in the supporting role of Isaac, “Beef” premiered on Netflix on April 6. Choe did not immediately respond to PvNew‘s request for comment; nor did representatives for Netflix, A24 or “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin.
And though Choe has yet to address the backlash this time around, he did release a statement about “Erection Quest” back in 2014, which is posted in full below.
I never thought I’d wake up one late afternoon and hear myself called a rapist. It sucks. Especially because I am not one. I am not a rapist. I hate rapists, I think rapists should be raped and murdered.
I am an artist and a storyteller and I view my show DVDASA as a complete extension of my art.
If I am guilty of anything, it’s bad storytelling in the style of douche. 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. We fuck with each other, entertain ourselves and laugh at each other. It’s a dark, tasteless, completely irreverent show where we fuck with everyone listening, but mostly ourselves. 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!
In a world full of horrible people, thank god for us.
