Over the weekend, KJ Apa responded to criticism from comedian Elijah Daniel for staying silent on social media about the Black Lives Matter movement. The call out began last week (June 6) when Daniel took to Twitter about Apa's silence on racial injustice and questioned why he wasn't using his Riverdale platform to support the cause.
When a fan responded to Daniel's criticism of Apa a few days later by pointing out that the actor had starred in The Hate U Give, a young adult movie depicting police brutality against unarmed black men. "I love that movie but i do have a question, completely unrelated to the beef i formerly had with him, if KJ was the co-star of that movie why is he so silent?" Daniel wrote back. "He has such a massive young audience and got paid to be in a movie about police brutality and ... posted a black square?"
Apa caught wind of Daniel's tweets and responded to his questions about why he's stayed largely silent on the subject. "I don’t need to post about my opinions and beliefs in order for them to be real to me I support black lives," Apa wrote. "I don’t feel it’s necessary to prove to people I do by posting my attendance at these protests."
Daniels replied shortly after, doubling down on his initial point. "I didn’t say you needed to prove anything, this was a question about you not using your extremely large platform after being paid to be in a film about police brutality," he wrote.
While some fans defended Apa, others sided with Daniel. "KJ...this ain’t it.. young people look up to you, they want to see you speak out, it’s so important," one fan wrote. "KJ Apa has been silent for weeks, but the moment he said something, he just put himself under fire. He could have humbly recognized his inaction and listened and done better, but he just defended his apathy and inaction," another added.
Besides his initial response to Daniel, Apa has not commented on the situation.
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