Pachinko actor Jin Ha apologises for blog mocking photos of 'senior women'
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Jin Ha said he was wrong to make the blog posts 11 years ago.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES - Korean-American actor Jin Ha, who appears in the new AppleTV+ period drama Pachinko, has apologised for an old Tumblr blog where he posted pictures of "senior women" along with what he admitted were "inappropriate" captions.
Korean media outlet Soompi said the blog ran from July 2010 to September 2011, and featured street shots of "middle-aged and elderly women on the street or on the subway".
The pictures were reportedly accompanied by "comments that contained sexual harassment".
In a statement posted on his website in Korean and English, Ha admitted that the pictures on his "Korean Flowers In Bloom" blog were published without permission.
"I was wrong to take these photos 11 years ago, and I was wrong to post them online," he wrote, admitting that "many of my captions were inappropriate".
"I sincerely apologise to the senior women whom I photographed... My lack of judgment in 2011 has been pointed out by readers wiser than I have proved to be, and for that I am grateful," he added.
Ha also thanked fans for the opportunity to rectify his mistake: "I will work diligently to learn from this mistake so that I may never repeat it going forward."
The blog has since been deleted. His Instagram and Facebook accounts are also no longer available.
Ha was born in Seoul and moved with his family to the United States at the age of eight. His credits list is sparse, though it includes the 2020 sci-fi thriller Devs, and a 2021 stint on the renowned Broadway theatre production of Hamilton.
He plays Solomon Baek in the series Pachinko, which is adapted from Min Jin Lee's acclaimed 2017 novel of the same title and charts the ups and downs of a family that moves from Korea to Japan. The show, which stars popular South Korean actors Youn Yuh-jung and Lee Min-ho, is Ha's biggest project yet.
