News anchor faces backlash from fans after claiming BTS Oreos spell out “death to America”

    BTS at American Music Awards 2026

    A news anchor in Texas is facing backlash from BTS fans after making an inappropriate joke about the band’s collaboration with Oreo – saying that the cookies carry a secret message that reads “death to America”.

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    The anchor, James Eppler, made the comments while hosting Good Day Lubbock and reporting on the upcoming collaboration between the snack company and the K-pop giants.

    On June 8, Oreo will roll out some limited-edition biscuits made in collaboration with BTS, which will have the cookies in the band’s traditional purple colour and include sugar pancake-flavoured creme – inspired by the popular Korean food, hotteok.

    “The creme is supposed to taste like the South Korean treat hotteok, which is a brown sugar-stuffed pancake that some of the band members say they ate as kids,” Eppler said on the show.

    “That does sound good, right?,” he added, going on to quip that each biscuit is “engraved with one of 13 designs, which spell out a message to fans when put together that is ‘Death to America,’ which I think is really strange.”

    “No, it’s not,” Eppler quickly said after, brushing it off while laughing.

    While the news anchor was quick to laugh off the comments on the show, fans of BTS are not taking it as lightly and have been taking to social media to criticise Eppler for the comments.

    “Spreading misinformation about an Asian boyband on a news show knowing damn well how America is treating minorities right now is really weird,” one person on X wrote, while another accused the anchor of wanting “to incite violence against BTS” by making those comments “in this political climate”.

    “You need to train your news anchor better after you [have] fired this one, this was supposed to be a wholesome collaboration between Oreos and BTS,” wrote another fan online, and someone else chimed in “This is completely unacceptable. Using these kinds of comments as ‘humour’ only normalises racism and misinformation. It’s unprofessional, offensive, and defamatory.”

    “There is no room for ignorance, xenophobia, prejudice, racism or anything in between in journalism. If James Eppler cannot report news without being unprofessional, he doesn’t need a platform,” another wrote.

    At time of writing, Eppler has not publicly responded to the backlash nor offered an apology for the comments.