A TikTok clip which allegedly shows singer Billie Eilish imitating what sounds like a Cantonese accent and using a racist slur "c***k" for Chinese people has been spreading like wildfire on social media since it surfaced last week.
Chinese fans of the 19-year-old Grammy winner are especially upset, with China's nationalistic tabloid Global Times reporting on Monday (June 21) that netizens on Weibo in China have called for a boycott of Eilish.
"What she did makes me feel betrayed, like you give your heart to someone who actually belittles you," said former fan Sanni Zhu to the Global Times. "Whether this was before she became famous or not, or someone did it on purpose, it happened. The bad impression of her will be there forever. The Internet will remember."
On Twitter, the hashtag #BillieEilishisoverparty is trending, with users calling for her to be cancelled.
This latest social media scandal comes in the wake of another recent one involving her rumoured boyfriend, actor Matthew Tyler Vorce, 29.
He issued an apology on Instagram last week for old racist and homophobic posts which had resurfaced, and subsequently made his account private.
This is also not the first time that Billie has angered Chinese fans.
In June last year, she had shared a set of tweets on Instagram which praised Hong Kong protesters and suggested that Black Lives Matter demonstrators can learn from them how to evade the police.
On Weibo, netizens took that to mean that Billie supported Hong Kong independence and vowed to boycott her.
Billie's debut album in 2019, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was one of that year's best-selling albums and her highly anticipated follow-up album, Happier Than Ever, is due to be released on July 30. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
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