Fake News Fail: Media Misidentifies Comedian Ali Wong's Husband as Actor Randall Park
Media outlets misidentified comedian Ali Wong’s husband Justin Hakuta as actor Randall Park in a story about Wong announcing a divorce from her husband.
Parade magazine used a photo of Wong and her co-star Park posing for photos together on the red carpet from the 2019 premiere of Always Be My Maybe in a news story about the comedian announcing a divorce from Hakuta, reports Washington Post.
Meanwhile, MSN used a photo of just Park. While both publications have since deleted their tweets and replaced the photos, their errors did not go unnoticed.
Come on! Can we not ruin the news of Ali Wong’s divorce with Wrong Asian racism? pic.twitter.com/87SZ21cVQ7
— 👁 Phil Yu (@angryasianman) April 12, 2022
Parade apologized for the mistake on Wednesday in a statement posted to its Twitter account.
“We made a mistake and identified Ali Wong’s husband Justin Hakuta as her co-star Randall Park,” the magazine explained. “We understand how hurtful this photo mistake was and the impact it can have and we sincerely regret it.”
“We would like to apologize to Ali Wong, Justin Hakuta, Randall Park and everyone who may have been hurt by our error,” Parade added. “We will implement stronger measures going forward to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Our sincere apologies. pic.twitter.com/77KGpm7LZl
— Parade Magazine (@ParadeMagazine) April 13, 2022
Park is not the first Asian celebrity to be misidentified by the media.
Last year the film review app Letterboxd shared a photo of a woman it identified as actress Michelle Yeoh. The image, however, actually featured Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Fala Chen.
Hey @letterboxd this is @falachenfala, not Michelle Yeoh. #ShangChi #WrongAsian pic.twitter.com/I1SOgNovdV
— Joanna ᴘɪɴᴀʏ/ʏᴏɴsᴇɪ (@PinayYonsei) September 17, 2021
In 2019, Crazy Rich Asians actor Ronny Chieng slammed People magazine for misidentifying himself as Park, as well as confusing the identities of other Asian actors.
“@people, Jae W Suh is not in this photo. I am not Randall Park. And that’s Tan Kheng Hua not Michelle Yeoh,” Chieng lamented.
.@people Jae W Suh is not in this photo. I’m not Randall Park. And that’s Tan Kheng Hua not Michelle Yeoh. pic.twitter.com/vwSBvdnhIl
— Ronny Chieng (@ronnychieng) January 29, 2019
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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