Featured Image Credit: Getty/Nur Photo
Topics: Kim Jong-un, Politics, World News
Britt Jones
A Kim Jong-un impersonator has some bold words for the North Korean dictator.
Usually, when you look like someone famous, the fame is short lived, but not for Howard X.
In fact, his popularity has soared to new heights, even being deported from Vietnam at one point for hosting a fake summit with Donald Trump impersonator Russell White in 2019.
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Howard X said, as per the BBC: "Satire is a powerful weapon against any dictatorship. They are scared of a couple of guys that look like the real thing.”
Just a day in the life of a Kim Jong-un impersonator.
He began his career two years after the dictator took over from his father in 2011, and after thinking that the North Korean leader ‘looks a lot like me’, he decided to try something funny.
"Other people started saying the same thing, and I thought I should do something with this," Howard told Metro.
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After grabbing a suit he owned, he posted images to a Facebook group of himself pointing at supermarket items, and his post went viral.
Just two weeks later, he was flown to Tel Aviv to portray the dictator and the rest is history.
The Hong Kong native, who is in his mid-40s, enjoys his work, and that if he ever met him, he’d have a pre-prepared request for him.
He claimed he’d tell Kim: “I’d say ‘go kill yourself and make me the leader, I’ll free your country.’”
His work is pretty go-with-the-flow though, as usually, he has to wait for Kim to do something that gets the attention of the media before he gets his phone blowing up for his services.
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“Whenever Kim launches a missile, my phone is ringing off the hook,” he explained.
He added: “But I don’t wait around for him to do something. I’ve noticed that the best way for me to get work is to do my own projects.
“I’ve always been political, I’ve always gone to protests for various causes I believe in, and I found that this is a very useful tool to satirise dictators.”
Howard said: “People enjoy my satirical take on world events, and being in The Hague with all the action happening here it’s been good for my career – unfortunately.”
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However, his work has put him in hot water before as after he took part in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014 as the leader, Howard’s house was raided and he was then arrested by the police.
Thankfully, no charges were brought against him, but he left Hong Kong over safety fears.
He’s even claimed to have been assaulted by North Korean agents because of what he does.
But as he has an Australian citizenship, he’s been able to live there and lay low.
Howard explained: “If I was just one protester with a sign, I would be ignored, it wouldn’t have much of an impact, so I decided to use this impersonation to draw eyeballs to the cause of democracy, and it’s very effective.
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“I think that’s why dictators are so sensitive about it. All dictators fear being made fun of. A lot of protesters will be very angry, and a lot of people will get very turned off by that very aggressive way of protesting.”
Even though he gets into trouble, Howard has no plans to stop.