Ravi surrounded by lingerie-clad women in the controversial scene from the MV of his recent release, "Bomb." (Photo : YouTube/ mayralias)
Hours after VIXX's Ravi released his solo album, the singer has found himself at the center of a major controversy. Ravi debuted his first mini-album, "R.EAL1ZE" with the MV of his title track, "Bomb," on Jan. 9, Monday, but the video did not go down too well with viewers.
Ravi came under fire from netizens who complained that certain scenes in the MV were disrespectful towards women and misogynistic in nature. In the video, there is one scene in particular that viewers expressed their anger over.
The scene in question shows the rapper sitting on a couch as he is surrounded by several women wearing nothing but underwear. Ravi appears to be proud of having the lingerie-clad women around him in the video, which many thought was degrading towards women as it looked like he was treating them as trophies.
Many of them also accused the rapper of hypocrisy as the rapper has previously spoken out against using rap as a means to disrespect women in his solo single, "DamnRa." Following the backlash, the rapper took to his Twitter account to apologize for objectifying women in his MV.
"My music video for the title track "BOMB" has had some controversy on the topic of misogyny and objectifying woman in some scenes," All Kpop quoted the rapper as saying after translating the post from Korean to English. "I was unaware that certain parts could make the viewers uncomfortable and I sincerely apologize for the fans who felt uncomfortable."
The rapper added that in the future, he will pay more attention to these issues and make good music. Amid the controversy, Jellyfish Entertainment also issued an official statement obtained by Koreaboo.
"We have been notified that after its release on January 9th 12:00AM, Ravi's solo album title track BOMB's MV, contained scenes that promote hatred against women and objectify them," the agency said." These scenes that have caused such trouble were not intended to be viewed in such a way and it was an unintended result during the process of creating content."
The agency further noted that henceforth, they will take extra care while creating such content and pay more attention to the viewers. The label also mentioned that the controversial scenes will be edited out of the music video and a new MV will be uploaded on YouTube and other websites.
Jellyfish Entertainment subsequently removed the original video and replaced it with a re-edited version. Watch the controversy-free MV of "Bomb" below:
