British YouTuber, rapper and boxer Olajide Olayinka Williams JJ Olatunji, known professionally as KSI, has apologized after a racial slur and will take a break from social media.
KSI is a co-founder and member of YouTube group the Sidemen. On Sunday, KSI and the Sidemen appeared in a video based on U.K. game show “Countdown” where the contestant chooses between two stacks of letter tiles, one containing vowels and the other consonants and has 30 seconds to form the longest single word they can, using nine letters.
KSI formed the word “P**i,” a pejorative term used to describe people of South Asian origin in the U.K., saying: “I don’t mean this maliciously, but the word’s P**i.” The offensive word was bleeped. KSI’s fellow Sidemen are evidently amused by the slur in the video.
The clip drew massive outrage on social media including from leading arts practitioners hailing from the South Asian community.
Actor, writer and producer Guz Khan, BAFTA nominated for “A Man Like Mobeen,” posted a series of tweets, one of which said: “You see @KSI the issue you have here is that a lot of Pakistanis can make things very difficult for you and anyone giggling in this video. When they catch up with you, I hope the dead countdown joke was worth it…”
DJ Bobby Friction tweeted: “I had this racial slur thrown at me & got physical beats by racists for my entire childhood. Genuinely upset that @KSI (a guy my children love) did this & thought it was funny. The rest of them laughing can go f**k themselves too. People dehumanising brown people like it normal”
The offensive video has since been removed from the Sidemen YouTube channel and KSI has issued an apology.
“I wanna apologise for saying a racial slur in a recent Sidemen video. There’s no excuse, no matter the circumstances, I shouldn’t have said it and I’m sorry,” KSI tweeted. “I’ve always said to my audience that they shouldn’t worship me or put me on a pedestal because I’m human. Im not perfect, I’m gonna mess up in life, and lately I’ve been messing up a lot. So I’ve decided I’m gonna just take a break from social media for a while.”
