Bling Empire star Kevin Kreider has said he is “excited” to prove those who said the show is “tone deaf” wrong.
After its trailer dropped, the Netflix show featuring “wildly wealth” Asian was quickly slammed for racism.
Premiering on 15 January, the eight-part series is based in Beverly Hills and follows the group spending their time at extravagant parties, lavish spending sprees and on luxurious holidays.
“It’s like they ignored years of progress that we’ve been trying to create while we work so hard, so giving us more bad stereotypes just adds to all the discrimination, racism, & increased attacks we face over COVID for being Asians,” one critic wrote.
In an interview with EW, Kreider acknowledged the criticism but insisted that it is misconstrued.
“I know a lot of people are claiming that it’s like going to be tone deaf and “we don’t want to see people spending money,” but it’s actually really not about that at all,” the 37-year-old said.
“That’s what I hope people see when they watch this.”
Discussing proper Asian representation, Kreider said Bling Empire achieves it well.
“I think it’s a really important representation that we’re even doing this reality show,” he said. “You see all types of Asians. People who are middle-class, people who are working for their careers and goals.
Christine Chiu, Kane Lim, Kelly Mi Li and Kevin Kreider are also among the stars.
“Some people who married into money, some people who always had it, some people who lost it and are trying to make it again, all of these things where it’s not just tone deaf with [only] rich Asians.”
He added that critics who feared the show would result in negative stereotypes will be proven wrong after seeing it.
“That’s what I’m excited for people to see. And I’m excited to prove those people wrong that say it’s tone deaf, or that it’s just about people spending money, and we’ve seen it before. I can’t wait for them to know that they were wrong.”
