Friends of Married At First Sight star have hit back at ridiculous false claims he is a white nationalist after he was accused of displaying a ‘racist’ hand symbol while filming the Channel Nine show last year.
Photos surfaced this week of the Bondi-based carpenter, 25, displaying the upside-down ‘OK’ hand gesture — which some consider to be a symbol of the white-power movement — while arriving at a dinner party in on November 8.
He also displayed the ‘OK’ symbol on three other occasions — on October 23 and twice on October 6 — after noticing a Daily Mail Australia photographer following him.
However, sources close to the tradie have denied he has any links to the far-right, clarifying his hand gesture was perfectly innocent and dismissing the controversy — which has been stirred up by ‘woke’ fans on social media — as a ‘storm in a teacup’.
Friends of Married At First Sight star Al Perkins (left, with ‘wife’ Samantha Moitzi on November 8) have hit back at ridiculous false claims he is a white nationalist after he was accused of displaying a ‘racist’ hand symbol while filming the Channel Nine show last year
One insider, who knows Perkins well, confirmed he was just playing ‘the Circle Game’ — a schoolyard joke in which you display the OK hand gesture below the waist and encourage another person to look at it.
Once they have looked at it, the other person has ‘lost the game’ and they receive a punch on the shoulder.
‘He was just trolling the paparazzi and playing the Circle Game.The whole «racism» thing is stupid. It’s a storm in a teacup,’ the friend told Daily Mail Australia.
Photos surfaced this week of the Bondi-based carpenter, 25, displaying the upside-down ‘OK’ hand gesture during filming.Sources close to the tradie have denied he has any links to the far-right, clarifying his hand gesture was perfectly innocent and dismissing the controversy — which has been stirred up by ‘woke’ fans on social media — as a ‘storm in a teacup’
Photos of Perkins arriving for Wednesday night’s dinner party with his ‘wife’ Samantha Moitzi — taken on November 8 — went viral this week after eagle-eyed fans noticed his hand gesture was similar to that of the white-power symbol.
‘Woah, Al’s a white supremacist now?This wasn’t on my MAFS bingo card,’ one troublemaker commented on Instagram.
‘Wow, what a loser! He may as well have this symbol tattooed across his forehead,’ another wrote, once again repeating the false claims.
However, many other fans were quick to defend Perkins, link alternatif w88 pointing out that most people associate the hand symbol with ‘The Circle Game’ and the phrase ‘A-okay’.
This hand gesture has been used by far right-wing groups to represent white supremacy, and The Anti-Defamation League classified it as an official symbol of hate in 2019.
Its meaning as a racist symbol isn’t widely known beyond far-right circles, and the left-wing activists that seek to decode ‘secretly’ racist messages online.
‘He is Asian. Why would people think he is putting out a KKK message?’ one supporter wrote, noting how Perkins is half-Malaysian.
‘How’s the people on here like, «Al’s a white supremacist.» Didn’t you have friends in school?’ another wrote in reference to ‘the Circle Game’.
Unbeknownst to Married At First Sight producers, bandar asianbookie Perkins had been pictured doing the hand sign while arriving at each of the show’s dinner parties, and while out and about in Sydney’s CBD during filming.
‘He has been playing games with the paparazzi and has even jokingly punched a few of them,’ a source told Daily Mail Australia.
‘He didn’t mean to offend and was just trying to be cheeky after what sometimes was an intense experience for him.’
Unbeknownst to producers, Perkins had been pictured doing the hand sign while arriving at each of the show’s dinner parties, and while out and about in Sydney’s CBD during filming.(Pictured here with Moitzi on October 6)