Was TWICE Tzuyu Insulted in ‘Showterview With Jessi’? What Caused the Team to Apologise?

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The variety program Showterview With Jessi has landed in controversy. The program’s latest episode with TWICE members led to a misunderstanding and fans started criticizing Jessi for colorist remarks against TWICE’s Tzuyu. Following the backlash, Showterview With Jessi team has issued an official apology.

TWICE members appeared as guests in the latest episode of Showterview With Jessi. Host Jessi’s remark to Tzuyu’s wish to have lighter skin for a day caused all the misunderstanding. Here is what happened during the show.

Colorist remark?

On June 17, during the SBS Mobidic interview program Showterview, MCs asked TWICE to select a KPop member they would like to switch bodies with for one day. TWICE member Tzuyu chose Dahyun, saying that she would like to live with very pale skin like Dahyun at least for one day.

Hearing this, host Jessi looked at her own arms, making TWICE members laugh. It can be noted that Jessi is known for her tan skin. After the laugh-worthy reaction, Jessi went on to comment, “Why don’t you try a really deep ‘ttaemili’? One time, I scrubbed my skin really thoroughly and it became like baby skin.”

Here is a catch. Because the team Showterview mistranslated the term ttaemili as dirt. Whereas in reality, the term ttaemili refers to cleansing by using a textured glove to scrub dead skin cells. Thus instead of cleansing the word dirt was used in translation. This disappointed TWICE fans resulting in netizens accusing Jessi of making a colorist joke against Tzuyu.

Showterview Apology!

Following the netizens’ reaction, Showterview posted an apology letter on its official Instagram page. The show stated that both Jessi and TWICE did not intend for their comments to be taken out of context or offend anyone. The letter also stated that in the future, they will focus on the quality and accuracy of their subtitles and are currently editing the episode to avoid any more mistranslations.

“When providing the English subtitles for yesterday’s episode of the show with members of TWICE as guests, Jessi’s comment using the word ‘Ttaemiri,’ which holds the meaning of cleansing by scrubbing in Korean bathing culture, was mistranslated by our team as ‘dirt’ instead of ‘cleansing,’ upsetting fans in the process,” said Showterview With Jessi team.

“We, the Showterview Team, acknowledge and hold ourselves accountable for providing English subtitles that had room for misinterpretation. We will do our best to be more mindful moving forward. The video is currently being revised with regards to the mistranslation. We are deeply sorry for disappointing our viewers,” the statement read. The episode of ‘Showterview’ featuring TWICE is said to have been edited to exclude the controversial scene.