Mark Wahlberg's Problematic Past Resurfaces Following SAG Awards Appearance
The actor presented an award for 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.'
The Screen Actor's Guild Awards are being called out for choosing Mark Wahlberg to present an award to the mostly Asian cast of Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The actor, 51, took the stage at the SAG Awards last evening to present the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The honor went to the 2022 film starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan.
Following the presentation, fans were quick to bring up Wahlberg's past, specifically pertaining to an incident when he was a teenager where he was charged with attacking two Vietnamese men while high on PCP. Authorities reported that the actor used racist slurs to describe both victims of the assault that he plead guilty to.
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Wahlberg was sentenced to two years in prison, but wound up serving 45 days in jail for the 1988 attack. In 2014, the actor applied to seek pardon and have the attack wiped from his criminal record, saying that he has dedicated himself "to becoming a better person and citizen" in recent years.
In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, Wahlberg said that he "prided" himself "on doing the right thing and turning my life around," adding, "I would hope that people would be able to get a second chance in life."
Fans took to Twitter to call out Wahlberg, with one user writing, "Having Mark Wahlberg present an award to a mainly Asian cast given one of his hate crimes against Vietnamese victims back in the day is…an interesting choice, I’d say."
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"#SAGAwards forgot Mark Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to felony assault, and was sentenced to two years in jail, but served only 45 days of his sentence for assaulting a Vietnamese shopkeeper and used racial slurs against him. #ToneDeaf" another user wrote.
"I gotta say, having Mark Wahlberg, who literally went to jail as a teen for committing a hate crime against a Vietnamese man, present an award to the cast of Everything Everywhere All At Once was certainly a choice," another person shared.
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"I feel like if Mark Wahlberg (or his management) wanted his checkered racist past to fade into obscurity, presenting the SAG award to EEEAAO would not have been on the list of gigs to take," a fourth person added.
Wahlberg has not yet commented on the situation.
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