Rory KramerThe Chainsmokers‘ Alex Pall has apologized for comments he made during an interview while promoting the duo’s performance at the Ultra festival in China this past weekend.
In a now-deleted promo video that the duo shared online, Pall and his bandmate Drew Taggart are seen being interviewed by an Asian reporter. In the clip, which BuzzFeed News captured, Pall joked that he wouldn’t want to bring his dog Cheddar to China, and implied that it was because Chinese people eat dogs. The comments set off a firestorm online.
“Disgusted at the fact that the chainsmokers really had the nerve to make a racist ‘asians eat dogs’ joke in front of an asian interviewer,” one angry person tweeted. Another wrote, “no offense but if the chainsmokers can post a video of them making a racist joke imagine what they say behind closed doors.”
In response, Alex posted an apology, saying, “I made a comment in an interview about being hesitant to bring my dog Cheddar to China, because I had read reports about dogs being slaughtered in certain provinces.”
“We originally posted [that promotional] video to show how much we love China and our fans there,” he continues. “We would ever intentionally do anything to upset our fans and we apologize if we offended anyone. Anyone who wants to help prevent the slaughter of dogs please visit www.stopyulinforever.org.”
The website explains that an estimated 10 million dogs are killed each year for their meat in China. It concerns itself with stopping the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, during which 10,000 dogs are slaughtered and served as food.
httpss://t.co/0ukfSpfybJ pic.twitter.com/nNnsWXFaWW
— THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) September 11, 2017
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