Brandon Espiritu finds 'healing' in Osaka, admits ‘halfies’ remark was arrogant

Brandon Espiritu is trying to find “healing” in Osaka, Japan, after deactivating all his social media accounts earlier this month following the backlash over his controversial “halfies” remark.

The Mister Supranational Philippines 2024 titleholder drew criticism after posting a comment on social media that seemed to imply that full-blooded Filipinos were inferior to mixed-race Filipinos.

“Tell that to all the frontrunners for the Philippines. This country wouldn’t have a chance on the national stage without us ‘halfies,'” he said at the time.

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Following the backlash, Espiritu deactivated his social media pages, which he confirmed through a man-on-the-street interview by content creator Eren Wayne Jr. in Osaka, uploaded on TikTok on Monday, June 22.

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READ: Fil-Ams Brandon Espiritu, Jether Palomo under fire over pageant ‘halfies’ remarks

“I just feel like a little solo trip, keep my head right, re-center. Like, Osaka is kind of like a healing place for me,” he said. “Actually, I came here, to be honest with you, I’ll be real […] I went through some public backlash, like, last week when I dropped a comment on Instagram.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be ill-intent, but it just blew up, and I was, like, so infamous for, like, two weeks online… like crazy backlash, so I deactivated my stuff,” he added.

Espiritu explained that he plans to stay off social media for around two months as he acknowledged why many Filipinos were offended by his statement.

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“A lot of Filipinos got really mad about that. They thought that I was basically saying full Filipinos are less than half-Filipinos in general. But I was just basically speaking in context about pageantry,” he said.

“I will say, like, it was an arrogant comment. I should not have dropped that, and I do respect my country, my people. I definitely see where I went wrong, but, yeah, man, I gotta take a break,” added Espiritu.

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@thepageantguy_ken SPOTTED IN JAPAN I Brandon Espiritu (Interview by Mr. Erwan, a Brazilian Content Creator) Watch the full video. #Halfies #Pageantry ♬ original sound – Kenyong on YT

The social media influencer then offered advice to those who are going through the same situation as him.

“If this goes out to the Internet, I just want to let everybody know, like, if sh*t hits the fan – whether it’s money, your career, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, anything external that you can’t control – you could still find confidence in God, in your faith,” he said.

“I am only here, you’re only here because of our faith, and, like, without Him, I’m not confident at all. So you can take anything away from me, but you can’t take that away from me,” he added.

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Aside from Espiritu, another Fil-Am pageant titleholder, Jether Palomo, also drew backlash after he commented that he is pledging allegiance to the American flag on the former’s “halfies” sentiment Instagram reel.