December 04 2025, 08:15 
Out actor B.D. Wong apologized for making a racist comment on an Instagram post, writing, “I’m sorry if this #wtfbd moment tarnished any respect you may’ve had for me.”
Wong made the comment on an Instagram post by Mike Holston — a Black, muscular social media influencer whose account, @TheRealTarzan, has over 16 million followers — which showed Holston with a furry animal and asked followers to “Name this animal… wrong answers only.”
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Wong replied in a since-deleted comment, “It appears to be a Black man,” Variety reported. The comment played into centuries-old dehumanizing racist tropes comparing Black people to animals.
As screenshots of his comment began circulating online, Wong later apologized on the social media platform Threads, writing, “Y’all I made a very bad joke. As most people in hot water do, I deleted it for Damage Control but it’s out there & continues to hurt & disappoint & I’m really sorry about the hurt part. Super dumb, but I tried to follow the ‘Wrong Answers Only’ prompt with the wrongest answer. This succeeded only in that it was Super Wrong.”
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“I know nobody gets a free pass. I’m sorry if this #wtfbd moment tarnished any respect you may’ve had for me. & thanks if you advocate for an internet that’s safe for everybody,” he continued.
Several hours later, Wong continued, “I want to elaborate on a racist comment I posted, to clarify that I recognize & accept the responsibility for how terrible it is. It’s also wrong to try to ‘explain’ anything, & I think that causes a further breaking down in folks’ trust.”
“Let me please spend the energy on how wrong I know it is to exploit a despicable, racist trope in the supposed spirit of humor; I do know better, but again no excuses. Very sorry for the hurt I’ve caused & for taking lightly something so deeply injurious,” he added.
A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of Asian adults said they have personally experienced racial discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity at some point. About 78% said they have been treated as a foreigner, with people mispronouncing their names or telling them to “go back to their home country.” About 63% have encountered “model minority” stereotypes, such as people assuming they are good at math; 37% have been called offensive names by strangers; and 40% said they received poorer service than others at stores and restaurants.
Wong won a Tony Award for his 1988 Broadway debut as a gender-bending Chinese spy in gay playwright David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly. He played Dr. Henry Wu in the 1993 dinosaur film Jurassic Park and reprised the character in the Jurassic World trilogy. He also voiced the ambiguously bisexual Captain Li Shang in Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan.
He has since performed in 32 films, 36 TV programs, six plays, and video games. More recently, he portrayed Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Whiterose in Mr. Robot, and Hugo Strange in the Batman drama-action TV series Gotham.
He also wrote a 2003 memoir about surrogacy entitled Following Foo: The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man.
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