KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — Chaeyoung of popular South Korean Kpop girl group Twice has apologised on Instagram yesterday (March 21) for wearing a shirt with a swastika symbol on it.
In a recently deleted image, the singer donned a shirt featuring the Sex Pistol’s Sid Vicious wearing a tilted swastika symbol, which was the German Nazi party’s emblem.
if I had a coin for everytime chaeyoung wore a nazi shirt I would have two coins witch is not much but it's funny that it happened twice pic.twitter.com/rk6fwf3XEK
— aninha paula (@jimindekenner) March 21, 2023
This also comes days after she was seen in a QAnon shirt during a live performance in South Korean music programme Show! Music Core.
The shirt featured a QAnon symbol and slogan, ‘Where we go one, we go all’, representing the far-right political movement in the United States which began in 2017 to defend former President Donald Trump.
“I sincerely apologise regarding the Instagram post. I didn’t correctly recognise the meaning of the tilted swastika in the t-shirt I wore,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I deeply apologise for not thoroughly reviewing it, causing concern. I will pay absolute attention in the future to prevent any situation similar from happening again.”
Despite the initial confusion and outburst, most online commenters were quick to defend Chaeyoung.
Some pointed out that idols have no say in what they wear during live performances and alleged that it was an oversight of her styling team.
Kpop stars typically perform in clothes selected by stylists, who are often looking at design, fonts, etc...and paying less attention to the meaning. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. Usually it is just kind of funny. pic.twitter.com/f1Bmez0qE0
— Emma Marris (@Emma_Marris) March 19, 2023
Online users also added that the non-tilted swastika symbol is commonly used in Buddhist institutions, speculating that she did not understand the differences in symbol variants.
in Asia/Japan, it is very common for them to recognize the swastika as a Buddhist symbol, this is a video in which a woman asks on the streets what is in the image and this is the response of the girls pic.twitter.com/aOYffbBGfE
— GLOBAL TWICE | READY TO BE (@globaltwicee) March 21, 2023
The controversy comes just as Twice has risen in popularity in the US music charts, recently debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart with their 12th mini-album Ready to Be.
