Malaysian rapper Namewee (黃明志) was detained yesterday to assist police in their investigation into the murder of a Taiwanese social media influencer, the rapper’s lawyer said.
Namewee surrendered to police early yesterday and was to be placed under remand for six days, said his lawyer, Joshua Tay.
Police on Tuesday said that they were searching for Namewee after they reclassified Iris Hsieh’s (謝侑芯) death as a murder following the discovery of unspecified new evidence.
Photo: AP
Hsieh, 31, who had more than half a million followers on Instagram and also operated an OnlyFans account, was found dead in a hotel bathtub in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 22.
Police said that Namewee was the last person seen with her before her death, local media reported.
Namewee was briefly detained at the time, and separately charged for possession and use of drugs, allegations he denied.
A former nurse, Hsieh was known as “Nurse Goddess” by her fans.
Police said that she arrived in Malaysia on Oct. 20 and was scheduled to stay for four days. Police are waiting for the postmortem and toxicology reports before releasing the official cause of her death, local media reported.
Namewee, 42, said he was deeply saddened by Hsieh’s death, but denied any wrongdoing.
In an Instagram post after his surrender, he vowed to cooperate with the investigation to provide answers to the public and Hsieh’s family.
“I hope that the investigation will be carried out thoroughly, and with the utmost objectivity and fairness,” Tay said.
An outspoken artist, Namewee has been arrested and questioned by police multiple times over his satirical takes on politics, race and religion in his music videos and movies. He defends his right to artistic expression and says his videos use satire to highlight social issues in Malaysia.
In one of his earliest videos in 2007, he mocked Malaysia’s national anthem and was criticized for using racial slurs. The government in 2014 banned one of his films for allegedly portraying national agencies in a negative way.
He was detained in 2016 after Malay Islamic activists complained that a music video made by Namewee titled Oh My God, which was filmed at various places of worship and used the word “Allah,” which means God, was disrespectful to Islam.
Namewee said that the video was meant to promote religious tolerance and he was not charged.
Namewee was detained again in 2018 over complaints about a music video featuring dancers in dog masks who performed what authorities said were “obscene” moves that insulted Islam and could hurt racial harmony.
Dogs are considered unclean by Muslims, who account for about two-thirds of Malaysia’s 34 million people.
Namewee said his criticism was aimed at hypocrisy and abuse of power, not religion or race.
Namewee has also faced a backlash in China. He released a song in 2021 with Taiwan-based Australian singer Kimberley Chen (陳芳語) that poked fun at Chinese nationalists and touched on sensitive topics, such as Taiwan’s sovereignty. Beijing banned both singers from entering the country and removed the song from all Chinese platforms.
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