He’s at it again, folks: In once more attempting to performatively present himself as one of Hollywood’s premiere proponents of progressive thinking, Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu has responded to the news that death threats have been issued to the fledgling bubble tea company he accused of cultural appropriation on live TV by asking his supporters to scale back their rhetoric out of consideration for “the legacy” of this moment.
The Canadian actor’s latest media debacle began on October 10th when the Canadian Broadcasting Company aired the latest episode of their country’s version of Dragon’s Den, the reality investment television series wherein entrepreneurs attempt to solicit investments in their respective business from a panel of notable venture capitalists.
Featuring Liu as a special celebrity ‘Guest Dragon’, this episode (Season 19, Episode 3) at one point saw the panel approached by the team behind Bobba, a Quebec-based beverage company which sells bottles of bubble tea, both virgin and alcoholic, in various flavors.
When the time came for the actor to make a decision on whether or not to partner up with the company, rather than either simply declining to invest or attempting to explain his thoughts in good faith, Liu, the China-born son of two Chinese immigrants, declined the company’s offer by way of condescendingly accusing them of ‘cultural appropriation’.
“I am studying your can and I am looking for anything that tells me where boba came from, and where boba came from is Taiwan,” said the actor, per a clip of the segment provided by the Canadian pop culture-centric Twitter account @6ixbuzztv. “You know, I started this venture company for a lot of reasons, but really, primarily, to uplift minority entrepreneurs, and not only do I feel like this is not happening here, but that I would be uplifting a business that is profitting off of something that feels so dear to my cultural heritage. I want to be a part of bringing Boba to the masses, but not like this, and for that reason I’m out.”
Following the company’s exit from the Den, Liu can then be seen telling his fellow Dragons, “It makes me sad how successful this business is. It makes me sad that people are drinking with a Raccoon with sunglasses [on the can].”
This pompous declaration was in turn met with pushback from one of the series main panelists, Minhas Breweries & Distillery owner Manjit Minhas, who defended their guests, “It doesn’t mean they don’t have the opportunity to change and do that.”
“That’s true,” Liu said. “but there has to be a willingness, and I have to be able to invest in these founders knowing that the change is possible.”
Rather than letting him get away with his ‘soapbox moment’, Minhas further clarified, “But they didn’t say no. The collaboration that they’ve had to this point is with their supplier in Taiwan [as explained by the company earlier in the segment], and if nobody else has told them that before, you can’t put that all on them.”
In response, instead of continuing to pound his chest, Liu instead simply looked ahead and nodded silently.
Unsurprisingly, rather than this public humiliation attempt actually benefiting anything other than Liu’s ego, it instead led to Bobba facing a reported wave of harassment and death threats from those who shared the actor’s mindset.
Eventually, the outrage against the company apparently grew so extreme that Liu himself saw fit to offer a public, post-show statement on the entire situation.
And while he did, to his credit, ask his fans to scale their actions way the hell back, he also used the opportunity to both highlight his ‘virtuous actions’ and – far from actually apologizing for the patronizing way in which he made his point – lament how the “positive energy” that came from them was being overshadowed by the harassment.
“Hey everyone, it’s Simu,” began the Barbie actor’s response, as posted to his personal TikTok account. “I just thought I’d make a video here in response to this crazy social media moment that I found myself in as it pertains to Dragon’s Den and the ‘boba of it all’ [his attempt at making a lighthearted joke about the situation].”
“First and foremost I think we hit on a very important discussion on cultural appropriation,” said Liu. “What it is, how is something exploitative rather paying homage and paying respect, when is that line crossed? In that conversation, by the way, I’ve continued to experience a massive wave of positivity and support from people of every community and I just think that’s really incredible and I appreciate that.”
“On the flip side, I’ve been made aware that the business owners have received a lot of death threats and harassment and otherwise kind of bullying and dog piling and I just want to say, full stop, it’s never okay to make threats,” he declared. “It’s never okay to bully and harass online. And what I mean by that, I don’t mean that the business owners don’t deserve valid criticism, and I don’t believe you should not be vocal about your disagreement, but I think we can all agree, common sense, there is a line that you don’t and shouldn’t cross. There is a line that you wouldn’t cross in person, and I just don’t want the legacy of this segment to be pitchforks and people fearing for their safety. I think we’re starting to lose the plot of, and what ultimately the positive energy of, this [moment] is, which is let’s educate people, let’s make the world a better place, let’s make people aware that certain things aren’t okay from a cultural perspective.”
“When people’s personal safety are being questioned I think that’s when I have to take issue,” the Shang-Chi lead continued. “And I say that as someone who has, quite honestly, been on the other side. You know, rumors have spiraled out of control, social media’s kind of done its toxic thing, and I’ve overnight felt myself, you know, kind of on the other side of an internet dogpile. It’s one of the worst things you can go through, and it causes undue mental stress and trauma. And in the case of these folks, you know, they’re fearing for their physical safety.”
“So I just want to say this,” he then asserted. “I believe that the entrepreneurs of this business came on Dragon’s Den to pitch a business in good faith. There were a lot of things with the pitch that I took issue with and disagreed with, and as a a result, I pulled out as a potential investor. But that doesn’t mean that I believe they deserve harassment and threats. I think a lot of grace should be afforded to them because the French-Canadians, I think their exposure to these types of cultural conversations, was limited, and I also feel like English was not their first language, and when you have cameras pointed at you and you’re put on the spot and you have to kind of answer these questions that I don’t believe they were prepared to answer, I think you’re gonna say a couple of things that are not perfect, and not the best worded.”
“And you know, to a degree, yes it’s 2024, we expect that people do their part and educate themselves, but at the end of the day, I try to live my life, my real life, and those and the people around me, I give grace and I ask for a lot of grace,” Liu said. “I’m not a perfect human, but neither are any of the people in my life, and I just feel like I wish we had a little bit more of that energy online. You know, I wish that social media could be more of a habitable place, where we could actually voice respectful disagreement with one another, where we could respond to people as if we were looking each other in the eye and saying ‘Okay, I hear what you’re saying, this is my problem with it, this is my issue’, and we can have someone on the other end saying ‘I hear you. Thank you for saying that. We don’t agree, but I appreciate that we had this conversation.'”
“I also want to say that the show has been king of catching some strays, my fellow Dragons have been catching some strays,” the actor noted. “And kind of along the same vein of what I was saying before, we have such a short time to formulate our responses when we film these segments. Often times you’re seeing a lot of knee jerk reactions and microexpressions [it should be noted that Liu clearly begins to say ‘microaggressions’ before correcting himself] that happen faster than the blink of an eye, and then we can’t take them back because the camera’s rolling. So, I again have found myself on the other side of that, of an unfavorable edit, but I can tell you for a fact that the show, the producers, the crew, were so supportive of what I had to say. And in terms of my fellow Dragons, regardless of what they said, or what they did or did not do while the camera was rolling, in the break room, everyone was all ears. Everyone was like, ‘I want to hear more about what your perspective is. Let’s have a conversation.'”
“I really wish that that had been filmed, but that isn’t the reality, and so of course, the segment is what everyone has to go off of,” Liu admitted. “So yeah, just to conclude all of my thoughts: Let’s not cross that line, let’s disagree with each other, let’s critique each other, let’s critique this idea of cultural appropriation, let’s talk about it, but what we’re not gonna do is threaten people’s physical safety and make people feel unsafe and cause them trauma that quite honestly they don’t deserve as entrepreneurs who, in good faith, attempt to pitch a business.”
Drawing his statement to a close, Liu ultimately told his fans, “Was it misguided? I believe so. A little ignorant? Absolutely. But those are all human things, and so yeah, I guess I’m just asking for empathy and compassion. Thank you again for all of your words of support. I’ve really, really appreciated it.”
[Editor’s Note: A previous version of the article incorrectly identified Liu as being born in Canada. He was in fact born in China before immigrating to the Great White North at the age of 5. This has since been corrected.]