From discussing nuclear war to belting out a beloved hit, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s White House visit ended on a high note when he sang US singer Don McLean’s American Pie to great applause.
Yoon was on a six-day state visit to Washington, where he on Wednesday discussed with US President Joe Biden “the end” of any North Korean regime that used nuclear weapons against the allies.
However, the two leaders had more cheerful topics on the agenda at the White House state dinner in Yoon’s honor later that day, with the South Korean president — who is known at home to be something of a karaoke buff — sharing his love of US pop music.
Photo: REUTERS
“We know this is one of your favorite songs, American Pie,” Biden told Yoon, having pulled him up onto the stage at the end of the evening to listen to singers perform the classic.
“Yes, that’s true,” 62-year-old Yoon said, adding that he has loved the Don McLean song, released in 1971, since he was at school.
“We want to hear you sing it,” Biden said.
Photo: AFP
“It’s been a while, but,” Yoon responded, offering only token resistance as he took the microphone.
Yoon belted out the first few lines of the song a cappella, triggering rapturous applause from the crowd, and delighting Biden and his wife.
“The next state dinner we’re going to have, you’re looking at the entertainment,” Biden told the crowd, referring to Yoon.
Then he turned to the South Korean president and said: “I had no damn idea you could sing.”
Biden told Yoon that McLean could not be at the White House to join them, but had sent a signed guitar, which the US president gifted to his South Korean counterpart.
“Yoon literally tore up the stage and White House,” one Twitter user wrote in Korean in reply to a video of Yoon singing.
“Yoon has revealed his hidden singing talent,” another user wrote, also in Korean, resharing the video.
It is not Yoon’s first time singing in public. On the campaign trail in 2021, he appeared on the famous South Korean TV show All the Butlers, wowing its celebrity hosts with a sparkling rendition of the K-pop ballad No One Else by Lee Seung-chul.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS