David Choe threatens copyright infringement over revived interview

April 18, 2023

In a 2014 interview, the “Beef” star said he forced a masseuse to perform oral sex on him. He later claimed it was a bad joke for “shock value”.

David Choe’s role in “Beef” brought the painter-turned-media personality’s unsavory comments back into the public eye. A revamped 2014 music video for Choe’s former podcast “DVDASA” (short for Double Vag, Double Anal, Sensitive Artist) gained particular attention as Choe can be heard joking about non-consensual sexual encounters.

In the clip, Choe tells adult movie star and podcast co-host Asa Akira that she once forced a masseuse to perform oral sex on her. Choe did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment.

“He doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t stop it either,” Choe said (via Deputy). – I grab the back of her head, push it down on my cock, but she doesn’t do it, then I go “open your mouth”, she does it, and then I start fucking her.

He continued: “With the rape stuff… I mean, I’d be in a lot of trouble right now if he put his hand on my ass and said, ‘Damn, I’m going to call security.’ That would have been a completely different story. But the thrill of possibly going to jail was what got the erectile drive going.”

Choe, who made hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook stock after painting murals for the tech giant, added at the time: “I just want to make it clear that I recognize that this is violent behavior. But I’m not a rapist.”

The subsequent bad publicity prompted Choe to take aggressive measures to prevent the clip from being shared. Many social media users who posted excerpts of the interview in recent days claimed they had been notified that their tweets would be taken down for copyright infringement.

Several users shared screenshots of the notification on Twitter, attributed to the non-profit David Young Choe Foundation. It was founded in 2015 and was later named the Meleka Foundation. The foundation owns all podcast episodes and is exercising a legal right it claims to prevent unauthorized sharing through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Writers Aurora Bogado and Meecham Whitson Meriweather posted clips of the interview on their personal Twitter accounts on Thursday, but both were removed on Sunday. Species reported that the two had received emails on Twitter claiming that Choe had filed Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims against them and demanding that the clips be taken down immediately.

While Choe appears to be actively working to prevent the interview from going viral, he still maintains that his comments were humorous and do not describe what he actually did.

Choe released a statement in 2014 clarifying the podcast’s comments, claiming that the story was created for the podcast “as a full extension of my art”.

“If there’s one thing I’m guilty of, it’s bad story-telling in the style of the billet. Just as many of my paintings are often misinterpreted, the same applies to my performance,” said Choe. “The main purpose of all of my podcasts is to challenge and provoke my friends and fellow cast members. We poke each other, entertain ourselves and laugh at each other. Then it’s a dark, tasteless, completely disrespectful show where everyone listens, but mostly ourselves. We create and tell stories. This is not a news show. This is not a representation of my reality. This is not the place to get reliable information about me or my life. This is my version of reality, this is art that sometimes offends people. I’m sorry if anyone believed the stories to be true. They weren’t! In a world full of horrible people, thank God for us.”

Continued by separate 2017 post, “I ran a story purely for shock value that made it look like I had sexually assaulted a woman. Although I spoke these words, I did not perform these actions. It didn’t happen that way. I was NOT sexually harassed. I am deeply sorry for the hurt I have caused anyone with my past words… I was sick at the peak of my mental illness and spent the last 3 years in mental health facilities healing myself and dedicating my life to helping. and healing others through love and action.”

Choe also said The New York Times In 2021, that his controversial history was a way of finding rock bottom.

“At that point in my life, I was done with life and I was chasing ass. I wanted to go out,” Choe said. “I never raped anyone.”

Instead, the story was born out of a “morbid curiosity to feel an external response to the internal shame I felt,” with Choe concluding, “It was strangely comforting to be so despised. It matched how I felt about him the first time.”

David Choe tweeted to get the video I posted for copyright reasons of the woman he says he raped.

She claims that her *nonprofit* owns the copyright to the video in which she talks about the alleged rape. pic.twitter.com/6IaSXTOeQ1

— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) April 16, 2023

My account was not suspended for tweeting the video of David Choe admitting he was an ar*pist. In fact, this is NOT the way to do damage control pic.twitter.com/XZBEbpTZTZ

— Meech (@MediumSizeMeech) April 16, 2023