Taeyang under fire for using a black person for “Year of the Monkey" post

For the Lunar New Year, many idols have been posting on social media to celebrate with their family and fans.

However, BIGBANG‘s Taeyang has recently come under fire for one of his Lunar New Year posts. While the YG Entertainment artist uploaded two short videos onto Instagram to celebrate, he’s been accused of racism for a post featuring American rapper Kanye West.

Using an app that seems to allow the user to fuse their faces with any one they want, Taeyang made a post for Korean fans using fellow group member T.O.P, and one for international fans using Kanye West. While he wished fans a happy new year in Korean and tried to imitate T.O.P in one post, he came under fire after saying “Happy Monkey New Year” and imitating a monkey in his video as Kanye West. Taeyang has since removed the post, but has also been flooded with comments from his fans regarding the racist nature of the deleted post.