A British influencer who became so enamored with K-pop that they underwent 18 surgeries to look like their favourite BTS star and now says they identify as Korean, has been met with accusations of cultural appropriation.

Oli London is a social media influencer and has over 800,000 followers across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. London, who is non-binary, announced the 18 surgeries in a YouTube video released this week.

They undertook the racial transition surgeries with the aim of looking like BTS star Park Ji-min, also known as Jimin. Their surgeries included a facelift, brow lift, eye surgery, temple lift and veneers.

“For the first time in my life I feel beautiful. I’m looking in the mirror and I love the way I look and feel happy, and I hope people can respect my decision,” London said in the video.

“I know a lot of people don’t understand me, but I do identify as Korean, and I do look Korean now. I do feel Korean.

“I don’t identify as British, so please don’t … refer to me as British, because I identify as Korean.

“That’s just my culture, that’s my home country. That’s exactly how I look now, and I also identify as Jimin – that’s my Korean name.”

London also took to Twitter to declare that they are ‘transracial’.

“TRANSRACIAL is a thing! I invented it! If you can be transgender you can be TRANSRACIAL. Live your life to the fullest, be who you want to be and spread love,” they posted.

Unsurprisingly, the controversial move has been met with a lot of backlash.

“No. Gender is a social construct and ETHNICITY isn’t. Being Korean is about the DNA , culture and history and also being raised there, not claiming you wanna be them just by liking their culture and music genre. Pls stop. You went too far. We as asians hate it,” said one user in the comments.

TMZ has reported that London has been met with death threats since releasing the YouTube video.

For more on this topic follow the Asia Pop Observer.

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