Speaker 1: At some point you decided you were going to make
Speaker 1: an album. Yeah, what what kind of headspace were you
Speaker 1: in when you even started writing. I just needed to
Speaker 1: do something to like not think about these things. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know I was doing it. I was just
Speaker 1: writing stuff down and then I started making some beats.
Speaker 1: The album came out and did well tag and Contnspoma.
Speaker 1: I remember people were saying that this is proof that
Speaker 1: Tableau didn't really need those degrees to become uh this
Speaker 1: this renowned musician. I think in some of the reviews,
Speaker 1: I think that there was sort of this this narrative
Speaker 1: that Ah Tableau has surmounted and overcome these issues, you know,
Speaker 1: these attacks. He's one, He's back our triumph art trying
Speaker 1: to the power of music. Tablow has overcome and paining
Speaker 1: creates the most beautiful art. I heard that a lot.
Speaker 1: They did proclaim it as like a triumphant moment. At
Speaker 1: this point, I wasn't like completely all there. It's just
Speaker 1: a weird feeling, you know, you know, like whole like
Speaker 1: suffering creates the best art, and it made me think
Speaker 1: that it's not worth it. Art's not worth that much suffering,
Speaker 1: So like for it to be a comeback really just
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't anna come back yet. When Tableau's solo album,
Speaker 1: Fever's End came out in November of two thou eleven,
Speaker 1: music magazines were praising the record, which he deserved. This
Speaker 1: was some of Tableau's best work ever, and in general,
Speaker 1: the press was marveling and how he'd overcome this difficult
Speaker 1: time in his life. But Tableau wasn't paying attention to
Speaker 1: any of that. He was more focused on getting past
Speaker 1: the damage that Tajose campaign had done to his personal life.
Speaker 1: It would be a while, but Tableau would eventually realize
Speaker 1: that Tad had not only altered his life, but his
Speaker 1: family's lives forever. At the same time, when the press
Speaker 1: declared his triumphant comeback, when he was finally free from
Speaker 1: the accusations and the rumors and free to be the
Speaker 1: artist the Tableau that everyone now finally believed that he was,
Speaker 1: that he experienced the worst year of his life. Feena
Speaker 1: fip HOPI tipp what the signs my name? Whenever I
Speaker 1: can run, I can keep writing there my books on
Speaker 1: the Worst Tame the Mark Yeah Boo from Vice and
Speaker 1: I Heart I'm Dexa Thomas and This is Authentic Episode seven. Family.
Speaker 1: In July of two thousand eleven, a journalist named Joshua
Speaker 1: Davis flew from the US to South Korea to write
Speaker 1: a story about the Tajan No scandal for Wired magazine.
Speaker 1: He had already done one article for another magazine, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to do a more in depth piece that
Speaker 1: would include an interview with Tableau himself. Some of the
Speaker 1: most disturbing details from that article aren't from quotes from
Speaker 1: the interviews, it's from the descriptions. The first time he
Speaker 1: meets Tableau, the reporter describes him as looking quote crazed.
Speaker 1: He says that Tableau was holding a cigarette, but he
Speaker 1: never lit it and his eyes kept darting nervously across
Speaker 1: the room. In the second interview with Tableau, the journalist
Speaker 1: brought up something during his reporting. He'd spoken to some
Speaker 1: Tajeno members, and these members told them that their basis
Speaker 1: for believing the rumors, the credibility came from someone who
Speaker 1: was close to Tableau. How did you feel knowing that
Speaker 1: there are family members, Howard Distant who were being implicated
Speaker 1: in these attacks against you. To tell you the truth,
Speaker 1: I wasn't surprised you weren't surprised. Yeah, I wasn't surprised
Speaker 1: because you know, like I didn't get to choose my relatives.
Speaker 1: They didn't get to choose me. Right. This wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time Tableau had heard this. During the police interrogation.
Speaker 1: Almost a year prior to that, the police had brought
Speaker 1: up a name that he recognized, Sam Cho, Who's a
Speaker 1: cousin that I actually know and uh I went to
Speaker 1: Stanford with apparently was writing things about me. Sam Cho
Speaker 1: was the cousin Tableau had lunch with when he got
Speaker 1: to Stanford, And the first thing he said to me,
Speaker 1: how did you get into Stafford? Really? Yea? I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, Sam, let's just see. After he graduated, Tableau
Speaker 1: says he didn't really think much about his cousin Sam
Speaker 1: until Sam's name came up in connection with Tajano. So
Speaker 1: I have to take a couple of steps back here
Speaker 1: to give you the backstory on why Sam's name ever
Speaker 1: came up in the first place. It actually involves another scandal,
Speaker 1: this time involving Tableau's brother and a comedy show. See
Speaker 1: back in two thousand nine, there was this game show
Speaker 1: on Korean TV called Infinite Challenge It had an episode
Speaker 1: where the contestants went to New York and complete challenges,
Speaker 1: but they had to do it in English. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cut well, I don't number one. At the time,
Speaker 1: Tabloo's brother David was a host of another TV show.
Speaker 1: This was an educational show where he taught English, and
Speaker 1: what David saw on Infinity Challenge really set him off.
Speaker 1: It looked to him like the contestants were pretending to
Speaker 1: be bad at English and playing it all up for laughs.
Speaker 1: David was an educator and so even though this was
Speaker 1: a comedy show, he didn't like the image of smart
Speaker 1: Koreans playing dumb. So on November twenty one, two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: he decided to write a post about it on his
Speaker 1: blog Are you Fucking Serious? That is the one line
Speaker 1: that he wrote in English. It's really long, so we'll
Speaker 1: just kind of cover the main points and we'll have
Speaker 1: someone else read it. Am I the only one who
Speaker 1: thinks this? Or did those white boys make him into
Speaker 1: a complete fool? I wonder what those white boys were thinking. Actually,
Speaker 1: never mind, even if they said it out loud, the
Speaker 1: Koreans wouldn't have understood. Perhaps they thought, what are these
Speaker 1: fucking retards doing. I know you're being real for entertainment,
Speaker 1: but keep the local comedy in Korea please. Okay, since
Speaker 1: when was it so humiliating to be a part of
Speaker 1: the Korean race. David's blog post spread like wildfire. People
Speaker 1: were pissed. First, there's the obvious, the vulgar language he used.
Speaker 1: Not only is this not cool as a member of
Speaker 1: a major broadcasting network, but most people knew him from
Speaker 1: his TV appearances as this mild mannered teacher. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was almost like watching Mr Rogers drop the F bomb.
Speaker 1: It was shocking. But there's also the fact that he
Speaker 1: was Tablow's brother. This was back when Tableau was at
Speaker 1: the height of his fame. He was getting engaged and
Speaker 1: preparing to have a baby. He and his family were
Speaker 1: in the spotlight, and everyone gave off the impression of
Speaker 1: a respectable, high achieving family, and that foul language rant
Speaker 1: was far from what one would expect from that kind
Speaker 1: of model family. David did end up apologizing, but the
Speaker 1: damage had been done. This had all cast a shadow
Speaker 1: over the public image of Tableau's family, which brings us
Speaker 1: back to Sam Cho the controversy about David's blog. As
Speaker 1: you can Imagine was making some waves in the news,
Speaker 1: and on one of the articles on the website of
Speaker 1: a major newspaper, Sam cho posted a comment. But even
Speaker 1: though the article itself was about David, Sam was writing
Speaker 1: about Tableau. You could only get into a good school
Speaker 1: because of your cousin's recommendation. Sole International School knows it,
Speaker 1: but they politely pretended that they didn't notice. Sole International
Speaker 1: is the high school that Sam and Tableau both went
Speaker 1: to in Korea. Sam is saying that Tableau wouldn't even
Speaker 1: have gotten into such a prestigious university like Stanford if
Speaker 1: it weren't for Sam himself recommending him, so he deserves
Speaker 1: credit for that part of Tableau's early success. You are
Speaker 1: not a top student at Stanford. You didn't even have
Speaker 1: a high i Q, and you absolutely didn't get good
Speaker 1: grades in high school. Everyone who studied at Stanford knows
Speaker 1: that you took so called creative writing courses so you
Speaker 1: can more easily get higher grades. It's not possible to
Speaker 1: trace every comment that Sam ever wrote online about Tableau,
Speaker 1: because it's been so long that some of those original
Speaker 1: articles might not exist anymore. But what we know for
Speaker 1: sure is that before Tajanio ever started, Sam was regularly
Speaker 1: writing comments and articles, not just articles about David, but
Speaker 1: even in generic news articles about Tableau. So I have
Speaker 1: to be clear here. We have seen absolutely no evidence
Speaker 1: that sam Cho was ever part of the Tajano Forum,
Speaker 1: and as a matter of fact, he publicly distanced himself
Speaker 1: from them. When Tagano started, sam Cho wrote a post
Speaker 1: on his blog and clarified that he did believe that
Speaker 1: Tableau had graduated from Stanford, but he added that he
Speaker 1: had doubts about Tableau being a so called genius. And
Speaker 1: even though sam rejected their claims, TA Janio found that
Speaker 1: last part very interesting and useful. Sam Cho was constantly
Speaker 1: being referenced by Tajano members. The writer of the Wired
Speaker 1: article even interviewed some members who said, quote, even this
Speaker 1: guy who claims he's his cousin called him a liar.
Speaker 1: The truth is in the cousin's comments. I rely on
Speaker 1: his statements in the court of Tajano opinion. Sam was
Speaker 1: a valuable asset. Here was a guy who knew Tableau.
Speaker 1: I mean their cousins, but it's not that straightforward. They
Speaker 1: are family, but they were never close when I went
Speaker 1: to Canada. Before then, I didn't even know they existed.
Speaker 1: Sam's family had also immigrated to Canada around the same
Speaker 1: time the Tableau's family moved there. It was pretty obvious,
Speaker 1: like right from the beginning that there was absolutely no
Speaker 1: way we could become close or become friends. We were
Speaker 1: just two completely different people. The White Tableau describes it,
Speaker 1: he and Sam hung out once. It sounds like one
Speaker 1: of those hangouts that immigrant families orchestrate to build a
Speaker 1: community to be in a new place. This can be
Speaker 1: really helpful and important for the adults who have limited
Speaker 1: chances to make new friends. For kids, though, it can
Speaker 1: feel kind of forced. He was accomplished violinist, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know they made him play like they're well, they
Speaker 1: made him play on the spot, I think, so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did a recital for everybody. It was awkward, honestly,
Speaker 1: and then the parents were like, you know, we're gonna talk,
Speaker 1: so you guys, you should go hang out in your
Speaker 1: cousin's room. And I went, and I remember he was
Speaker 1: playing a flight simulator like I think like German luftwaft
Speaker 1: or something like that, like World War two flight simulator
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and um, I was just sitting there
Speaker 1: like watching him play that. Sam and his family moved
Speaker 1: back to Korea a few years later, so when Tableau
Speaker 1: went back to Seoul, Sam was already there, and so
Speaker 1: he and Tableau found themselves at the same high school,
Speaker 1: Sol International. And the strange thing is, you know, our
Speaker 1: differences were even more visible by the time high school
Speaker 1: rolled around, Like there was no even though he was
Speaker 1: someone I had known kind of uh and sort of
Speaker 1: related to me, Like, it was impossible for us to
Speaker 1: have any interaction in school. And we also had to
Speaker 1: cross paths, uh kind of in a way because of orchestra.
Speaker 1: I also played the violin, right, so we were in orchestra.
Speaker 1: But I was a horrible violin player, Like I was
Speaker 1: just not a very good student, like in that way.
Speaker 1: So I was third violent, which is pretty much you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of just there. He was first violent, and
Speaker 1: he was like intense about that too. If you had
Speaker 1: to visibly like decide who was the more likely to
Speaker 1: funk up, It's probably gonna be me. These two cousins
Speaker 1: had very similar upbringings and they both moved back to
Speaker 1: Korea again around the same time. They had similar talents
Speaker 1: for music, and they went to the same prestigious high school,
Speaker 1: which maybe isn't surprising. Tableau and Sam were operating in
Speaker 1: the same immigrant ecosystem, with a pressure to succeed by
Speaker 1: being talented. Going to the best schools and having access
Speaker 1: to a Western education was seen as keys to success.
Speaker 1: A lot of kids probably had similar experiences, which, now,
Speaker 1: if you're putting the pieces together, Uh, it's it's almost scary.
Speaker 1: How like there's a parallel here. I did not know
Speaker 1: these parallels existed. Like other things happened, and you know,
Speaker 1: time went on, there are other things to think about.
Speaker 1: I was living my life. Sam and Tableau's relationship honestly
Speaker 1: doesn't sound all that unique. I mean, this is why
Speaker 1: comedians are always making jokes about having to see relatives
Speaker 1: you don't like during Thanksgiving, or watching your family post
Speaker 1: and wild racist memes on Facebook. Just because your cousins
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're destined to be friends. But when
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories started winding up, nobody knew about that dynamic.
Speaker 1: All that anyone on Tadano saw was Tableau's own cousin
Speaker 1: questioning his intelligence. That's all the context they needed or wanted.
Speaker 1: And again, when Sam saw what Tajo was posting, he
Speaker 1: wrote on his blog that they were wrong that Tableau
Speaker 1: did graduate from Stanford, but it was too late. A
Speaker 1: lot of people in taj you know, they were really
Speaker 1: going off of, well, his cousin is saying these things,
Speaker 1: because it's like, how bad much this Tableau or just
Speaker 1: Daniel guy b if his own cousin's saying this. One
Speaker 1: user wrote, the Tableau controversy would not have intensified and
Speaker 1: grown so much if you have not spoken out against Tableau.
Speaker 1: Even if these kinds of rumors were already out there,
Speaker 1: they became firm because of Mr Joe. When we first
Speaker 1: reached out to Sam to ask him about these comments
Speaker 1: and his interactions with Tableau, he didn't respond. I could
Speaker 1: see why a lot of people have kind of painted
Speaker 1: Sam as being one of the reasons that Tidano started off,
Speaker 1: when that's not really accurate. But now that ten years
Speaker 1: have passed, I wonder what Sam thought about all this,
Speaker 1: not just about Tableau, but about the bigger picture of
Speaker 1: what this all meant. So we kept trying to contact him.
Speaker 1: Finally he responded, m Hi, Stephanie, this is Sam. It
Speaker 1: seems you reached out to me several times to hear
Speaker 1: my side of this story on Daniel Lee's Tableau's scandal
Speaker 1: in South Korea about a decade ago. We wanted to
Speaker 1: see if Sam remembered all the interactions that Tablood told
Speaker 1: us about. Sam told us that he does remember their
Speaker 1: families hanging out in Canada, but he says they got
Speaker 1: together more than once. He also says that they had
Speaker 1: first met in the eighties, back in Korea, when Tableau
Speaker 1: was just a little kid who was into G I. Joe's.
Speaker 1: He also recalls the relationship at Stanford very differently. Remember
Speaker 1: the lunch that Tableau told us about where Sam rudely
Speaker 1: asked how he even got into Stanford. Well, Sam says
Speaker 1: he would never say anything like that, and he actually
Speaker 1: remembers hanging out with Tableau several times during college. I
Speaker 1: wanted to interview Sam like I've interviewed everyone else. He
Speaker 1: said no, but he did send us an email, and
Speaker 1: he agreed to let us have a voice act or
Speaker 1: read his letter as long as we didn't change anything.
Speaker 1: So here's what he had to say. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get too involved in what seems to be Daniel's
Speaker 1: old personal troubles, but since there were quite a few
Speaker 1: misconceptions and false rumors, I will clarify some serious factual
Speaker 1: distortions and misunderstandings through this opportunity for the benefit of
Speaker 1: the public. He starts out by talking about Tableau's TV appearances.
Speaker 1: The false storytelling by Daniel Lee about himself and his
Speaker 1: self aggrandizing behaviors was persistent for many years, and the
Speaker 1: Korean audience began to doubt his overall credibility, and he
Speaker 1: gives some examples of what he calls Tableau's exaggerations. Dan's
Speaker 1: major in English and Creative Writing at Stanford was largely
Speaker 1: self designed with massive, great inflationary characteristics compared to more quantitative,
Speaker 1: stem oriented majors at Stanford. Sam says that because of this,
Speaker 1: Tableau didn't accurately reflect what one would expect of real
Speaker 1: academic success at a prestigious school like Stanford. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: the patternley false yet viral rumor that Daniel Lee was
Speaker 1: not a Stanford graduate was a culmination of the ever
Speaker 1: growing public doubt on Daniel's past based on his dubious
Speaker 1: and not so credible storytelling behaviors over TV and radio
Speaker 1: broadcasts in Korea. So I have to say here that
Speaker 1: we have extensively fact checked Table's credentials, and we haven't
Speaker 1: found anything that is dubious. But in any case, Sam
Speaker 1: stressed that he never had anything to do with Tajanio.
Speaker 1: I have nothing to do with Tableau's anti fans and
Speaker 1: anti fan side creations in Korea. I did not start it,
Speaker 1: I did not participate in it. I was never an
Speaker 1: anti Tableau fan member. In fact, Sam made it clear
Speaker 1: that he doesn't see his comments at fault in feeding
Speaker 1: the conspiracy. Remember he publicly said that he believed Tableau
Speaker 1: went to Stanford. Sam thinks there's something else at play
Speaker 1: when people bring up those old comments he posted back
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine. Ultimately, I think Daniel Lee and
Speaker 1: his fan base wanted a convenient scape yards living far
Speaker 1: outside of their social networks to blame because in their
Speaker 1: disorted minds, Dan Lee's victim play is more effective that way.
Speaker 1: When I was in Korea, I read a few parts
Speaker 1: of Sam's letter to Tableau to see what he thought
Speaker 1: about it. More or less closed by saying, at this
Speaker 1: time of my life, I simply regard Daniel Lee as
Speaker 1: a boy who cried wolf when the wolves came down
Speaker 1: and imperiled him on his academic pedigree. Many people in
Speaker 1: Korea chose not to believe him anymore because his past
Speaker 1: storytelling was not credible. He's probably playing victim to this day.
Speaker 1: But it is my sincere belief that the entire credibility
Speaker 1: trouble for Daniel is his own doing and serves as
Speaker 1: a modern lesson of Aesop's fable for some people. And
Speaker 1: in the case, I hope that he's learned of valuable
Speaker 1: lesson and wish him all the best. I didn't cry wolf.
Speaker 1: They they sent the wolves, you know, they intentionally sent
Speaker 1: wolves after me, and then as I was being eaten alive,
Speaker 1: they told themselves that I'm the one who cried wolf,
Speaker 1: so that they feel less guilty about it. It's unfortunate
Speaker 1: that he thinks that, um, but not surprising honestly, because
Speaker 1: that was the narrative from the get go. And this
Speaker 1: is discounting the fact that I did defend myself. They
Speaker 1: just didn't accept it. I just I just want to
Speaker 1: say that it strikes me that over the last days
Speaker 1: of talking to you, this is our producer Kate and
Speaker 1: talking and like the center of the scandal being about education,
Speaker 1: and you spending days talking to us about the intense
Speaker 1: educational pressure or that you were under that. Clearly Samuel
Speaker 1: Cho was also under, as was generations of Korean children.
Speaker 1: To be honest, what it feels like to me is
Speaker 1: like a primal scream from an entire society of people
Speaker 1: who don't know what to do with this pressure. Yea,
Speaker 1: you know the fact that we we went to so
Speaker 1: many like you know, we crossed paths with these schools,
Speaker 1: the same high school, same college, um, but the way
Speaker 1: we did it was so different. Like I really feel
Speaker 1: like he was I don't know if you put it
Speaker 1: on himself or if his parents forced it on him,
Speaker 1: but I believe that he was um, like he was
Speaker 1: applied in intense pressure to achieve. Today, Sam says he
Speaker 1: doesn't really think much about the scandal. He sees himself
Speaker 1: basically just as a bystander or as an observer whose
Speaker 1: comments got taken out of content. Next, he still believes
Speaker 1: that Tableau's own actions and his brother David's comments kind
Speaker 1: of primed the pump for this whole conspiracy. He actually
Speaker 1: seemed to be a little offended at the idea that
Speaker 1: his comments had anything to do with the way that
Speaker 1: things escalated the way they did. I find it interesting
Speaker 1: that some people think that I should have refrained from
Speaker 1: such comments. Why I don't yet live under a tutalitarian
Speaker 1: regime here in the United States. It is an American tradition,
Speaker 1: let alone the legal right to protect, respect, or even
Speaker 1: celebrate the well informed, intellectual opinions of people. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: I'm a super happy citizen of the United States and
Speaker 1: have been for over twenty years. I have never lived
Speaker 1: in South Korea since my freshman year at Stanford in
Speaker 1: seven on a permanent basis, So I should say here
Speaker 1: that we weren't able to reach Tableau's brother, David Lee
Speaker 1: to ask him about any of this, but our producer
Speaker 1: did talk to Sam one final time over the phone,
Speaker 1: just to see if he had any other thoughts. They
Speaker 1: started talking about education and pressure again, and he didn't
Speaker 1: say much about his own personal experience. But Sam did
Speaker 1: say that he does think there is a heightened pressure
Speaker 1: to succeed in Korea, and that's sort of one of
Speaker 1: the only things that both he and Tableau seemed to
Speaker 1: agree on. If you watch how I raised my daughter
Speaker 1: like I am through showing through action what I didn't
Speaker 1: like about it, I'm raising her in a different way,
Speaker 1: and I don't really share it because there's no venue
Speaker 1: for me to share it really, and it's just my
Speaker 1: private matter. But funny thing, my daughter said to me, Hey, Daddy,
Speaker 1: is Stanford really nice? She asked me. She's eleven, right,
Speaker 1: And I think she said this because her cousin was
Speaker 1: told by someone that you know, maybe like you, you
Speaker 1: should grow up in go to Stanford and mentioned it
Speaker 1: to how do And I guess how do it because
Speaker 1: she talked mommy and Mommy's like, oh, that's the school dad,
Speaker 1: daddy went to. So how do? Came and asked me,
Speaker 1: And in my heart, I'm like, that's like not what
Speaker 1: I demand of you or expect of you, Like I
Speaker 1: want you to do your thing. And I was like,
Speaker 1: why do you want to go to Stanford? And she
Speaker 1: said because I heard there's a shopping center on campus.
Speaker 1: And I was just put a smile on my face
Speaker 1: right because thank god it was me. I was able
Speaker 1: to come out kind of unscathed, if you discount like
Speaker 1: these things happening to me. But I've had friends in
Speaker 1: college that that weren't able to make it out alive.
Speaker 1: Tablo says he came out kind of unscathed, but after
Speaker 1: spending days with him to close to twenty hours of interviews.
Speaker 1: I gotta say I think he might be overestimating himself here.
Speaker 1: Tableau was under incredible pressure to succeed, and to his credit,
Speaker 1: he absolutely met his parents expectations for his childhood, a
Speaker 1: Western education in elite high school, a prestigious college. Now,
Speaker 1: when he graduated, he decided to take another path. His
Speaker 1: parents hated this and continually told him that he was
Speaker 1: screwing up. But he did it anyway, and he proved
Speaker 1: that he was right. But then again, the demands that
Speaker 1: his parents put on him helped his career, so in
Speaker 1: a way they were right too. That pressure, both internal
Speaker 1: and external, that unresolved conflict. It turned him into who
Speaker 1: he is today, but it also left him with a
Speaker 1: lot of scars and a lot of doubts, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to his family. When I see my friends
Speaker 1: or you know, things, see the things that they've accomplished,
Speaker 1: UM sometimes have like, you know that that may have
Speaker 1: been the safer path that my parents wanted. And if
Speaker 1: I had taken that path, regardless of whether or not
Speaker 1: I would have enjoyed it, Um, none of what happened
Speaker 1: to my family would have happened. Quite possibly, my dad
Speaker 1: would still be alive. You really think that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: genuinely think that that this killed my dad. He had
Speaker 1: liver cancer when I was in college. He fought it
Speaker 1: for a long time and then he got okay. Tablow's
Speaker 1: father had been doing great. The family considered it a miracle,
Speaker 1: no relapse, no signs of sickness. But then suddenly he
Speaker 1: got sick, really sick. And this was like already about
Speaker 1: a year into this like heavy, which was like it
Speaker 1: was like three sixty five days of seeing um, your
Speaker 1: kid's name like in the new is also the entire
Speaker 1: family like my brother and my sister, like everyone, uh,
Speaker 1: and my mom too, like his wife, right like that
Speaker 1: that must have been like really something like something he
Speaker 1: you know, and at least I understood the internet like
Speaker 1: he you know, this was something like completely new to him,
Speaker 1: being like maligned m for the public to see. Right
Speaker 1: in March of Tabloo's father was rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Tabloo said he remembers going to the hospital just trying
Speaker 1: to focus on being there for his dad. But at
Speaker 1: the time, the Tajo trial was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: news headlines in the country, so the hospital's TVs were
Speaker 1: constantly tuned into it. As he was sitting there by
Speaker 1: his father's bedside, you could hear the news on the
Speaker 1: TVs in the background giving updates on the trial of
Speaker 1: the eleven people who were being prosecuted for defaming his family.
Speaker 1: Even in the hospital, Tabloo's family couldn't escape it. And
Speaker 1: then Tablow told me that within days of being admitted
Speaker 1: to the hospital, as the case was still ongoing, Tabloo's
Speaker 1: father passed away. It was supposed to be like a
Speaker 1: moment of triumph, but my dad never got to see it,
Speaker 1: and it was like just a surreal moment where they
Speaker 1: were right, you know in a way, Yeah that even
Speaker 1: if I do overcome this, uh, it wouldn't change a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is not easy for me to deal with. And
Speaker 1: what's worse is that, uh, you know, in a way,
Speaker 1: my parents, well, my parents were right because eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: it led to you know, my my dad just like
Speaker 1: being in the ICU and me like spending you know,
Speaker 1: days at the hospital and just watching him die. One
Speaker 1: thing that I do carry as weight is um. You know,
Speaker 1: people die of cancer, they die of UM, COVID, they
Speaker 1: die of like something or old age. My dad died
Speaker 1: of this and I don't even know what this is. Ah,
Speaker 1: they killed them, I'm sure of that. M so like
Speaker 1: that I carry and anybody that's sort of involved in this, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to free, give and forget, but
Speaker 1: I'm also like remembering that they killed my dad. If
Speaker 1: it occurs to me every once in a while, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I I funked it up for everyone.
Speaker 1: If that occurs to me, I think they possibly could
Speaker 1: blame me, And that's that's fine. You know, what can
Speaker 1: I do? It's partially true, right if I wasn't in
Speaker 1: the public eye, none of that would have happened. What
Speaker 1: do they blame me for? Do you think I think?
Speaker 1: I think my mom still thinks that I should have
Speaker 1: taken the safe road, and if I had, my dad
Speaker 1: would still be here, her husband would still be there.
Speaker 1: Anyone you talked to who knows Tablet personally will say
Speaker 1: the same thing. The Tabloos father's death it was a
Speaker 1: direct result of Tadano. Even the court documents of firm
Speaker 1: that quote this case significantly affected his health, and so
Speaker 1: the country that was once skeptical of Tableau started to
Speaker 1: feel sorry for him. When it was announced that Tableau's
Speaker 1: father had passed. The media, including some of the very
Speaker 1: same outlets that had published articles that fed tiging those attention,
Speaker 1: showed up to the funeral. They were waiting outside. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like I was like walking on the red
Speaker 1: carpet or something, you know. M I just wanted to like,
Speaker 1: it was pretty fucked up for them to be there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand that they weren't there to like
Speaker 1: give me a hard time. They just they were just
Speaker 1: doing their job. But even that was being broadcast, which
Speaker 1: I thought would be which I thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of odd, Like I would not want to watch somebody
Speaker 1: makes no sense. I wouldn't want to watch somebody carry
Speaker 1: out their dad. So sorry, Yes, I'm sorry. I'm fine.
Speaker 1: I just haven't had to think about it in a while.
Speaker 1: It's pretty fun. Up next time. Unauthentic the final episode.
Speaker 1: Authentic is a production of Vice Audio and I Heart
Speaker 1: Podcast Network, produced and reported by Stephanie Karayuki, Minji Coo,
Speaker 1: Hate Osborne, and myself with Janet Lee, Stephanie Brown, and
Speaker 1: Sam Egan. Sound design and original music composition by Kyle Murdoch,
Speaker 1: with additional support from Natasha Jacobs. Our Supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Janet Lee, editing from Lazy Roberts, fact checking by Minji
Speaker 1: Ku and Nikole Pasuka. This episode features music from Epic
Speaker 1: High from their album Fever's End, distributed by YG Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to our voice actor Daniel kim Our. Executive
Speaker 1: producer and VP A Vice audio is Kate Osborne from
Speaker 1: I Heart Podcast Network. Executive producers Nikki E. Tor and
Speaker 1: Lindsay Hoffman. I'm XR Thomas. Make sure to subscribe wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode