Oli London

Oli London was born on 14 January 1990[4] in Central London[5] or at least a city near to it.[6] His father is an interior designer, while his mother is a housewife.[6] Their interest in South Korea—and the culture—began in 2013, after arriving in Seoul for teaching English for a year.[6][7] Kumar Their co-partner, a Korean, introduced London many Korean phrases but according to them, owing to bad memory, they have forgotten almost everything taught.[8] They also started researching the country's culture and got to know of many South Korean music groups, mainly BTS, whose one of the singers, Jimin, they idolised.[8] The same year, London began having surgeries to make their face resembling that of Jimin.[9] On choosing him among other idols, they elaborated that this was due to his face's cuteness, and added, "Obviously, he's changed over the years. But he's just got a baby face, very round, cute baby face, the most beautiful eyes, his smile, everything about him."[8]

London started attracting the media's attention after appearing in a 2018 episode of the Barcroft TV documentary series Hooked On The Look, where their surgeries to look like Jimin is covered.[10] Utilising this viralness, in the next year, they started their K-pop career by releasing the single, "Perfection", a bilingual English-Korean song revolving on the perfectness and euphoria they felt after getting their surgeries;[8] it received negative reviews from music critics for its excessive autotune.[11] London's next single, "Butterfly", is about their transformation "from a caterpillar into a butterfly which is achieved through him finding happiness and transforming through plastic surgery to become a butterfly like Jimin".[11] It had a better reception, peaking at number eight on the iTunes K-pop charts.[11]

In their acting debut, London starred in the 2021 partially fictionalised short documentary film Gangnam Beauty, screened at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in two roles: as themself and as a sculptor forced to make fourteen different masks to save their village from the gods' wrath.[12][13]

London is an atheist[15] but admits to worship a cardboard of Jimin as a god and pray to the singer.[16] They say they respect people of religion;[15] though they once criticised the Islamic doctrines of women's dress codes.[17] London is paraphilic; they were married to the cardboard in January 2020 in Las Vegas, United States, but later divorced in early 2022 due to irreconcilable differences.[18] They are non-binary, having come out on Twitter on the Pride Month of 2021, and uses singular they.[19] They support the anti-racist Black Lives Matter and advocates for LGBT rights.[17] In May 2021, London's Instagram account was erroneously labelled as "memorialised", which indicates the death of the account's owner.[20] This occurred after rumours that London committed suicide; the status was restored, and London claimed their account had been hacked.[20]

London is transracial.[14] Their white-to-Korean transition attracted worldwide attentions,[21][22] and arose controversy around the validity of transracialism and comparing such identity with that transgender.[23][24] Writing for the Paper magazine, Sandra Song, also a Korean, deemed them offensive and commented they "effectively trivialises our identities because they're suddenly 'trendy.' "[25] London received death threats on the Internet for being transracial[26] but defended their identity as personal and said their intention behind transitioning is to appreciate the culture instead of upsetting people.[27][28] Others showed support for them. Rachel Dolezal, an American transracial activist, believed that a personal identity, including theirs, should not be other people's matters.[29] The Critic columnist Titania McGrath praised them for being brave to speak up for transracial people who are underrepresented and stereotyped by the society as culturally appropriative: "Those born in the wrong skin have always been persecuted for living their truth."[30][31]

London describes themself as one with "an obsessive and impulsive personality".[5] They, who live in London, practice their ability in speaking Korean with a private teacher every week.[14] Between 2018 and 2020, they dated the French pornographic actress Angelique Morgan.[32][33] London has spoken of their poor relationships with family and friends and the society's negative views towards them in result of their racial identity; their parents and sister were disappointed of their decision of being Korean, their friend circle shrinks to "only five or six friends", and the scathing comments they received on the Internet turns them reclusive.[14] As of April 2022, London has spent approximately £230,000 for more than twenty plastic surgeries and, quarterly, a skin whitening injection;[5][14] their next procedures, they said, would focus on feminising them.[5] The same year, they announced plans for penis reduction surgeries in order to become fully Korean in their standard and were criticised for promoting the stereotypes of East Asian men.[34][35]