Gymnast slammed for ‘vulgar’ and ‘insulting’ stunt at sacred religious shrine
They felt she was flipping their culture the bird.
Gymnastics influencer María del Mar Pérez Banus has been accused of “insulting” Japanese culture after performing a “vulgar” acrobatics routine at a sacred shrine.
A since-deleted Instagram video of heꦉr sacrilegious-seeming sequence h🌳as since been shared to X, where it amassed over .
The 25-year-old acrobat, who boasts over 140,000 followers on a page she shares with her sister, had reportedly executed the showcase at a Torii, a symb𒐪olic gateway
It’s often viewed as a boundary separating the human world from the spirit world, reported.
In the clip, Pérez — who hails from Chile but lives in the US — is seen dangling from the red structure like a pullup bar while gyrating as the hit song “Cha-Cha Slide” plays in the background.
Commenters were not amused by the defiling dance.
“This shows a lack of respect for Japanese religious culture and customs,” said one outraged viewer in a . “I hope you never come to Japan again.”
, “Foreigners really don’t know anything. If they break something, they’ll just run away. I wish you would stop.”
One even cited a passage from the “any person who publicly disrespects a shrine, Buddhist temple, graveyard, or other place of worship shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months or a fine of not more than 100,000 yen.”
Following the backlash, the fit-fluencer to fans over the insensitive stunt, claiming she didn’t realize the significance of the shrine.
“I really wasn’t thinking about what I was doing,” insisted Pérez in the mea culpa. “I want to apologize a thousand times. Please stop sending me messages and comments, I’m really sorry.”
She added, “I hope you can understand, thank you very much.”
In 2019, Pérez competed for Chile as a rhythmic gymnast at the Pan American Games and also won a silve💎r medal at the South American Gymnastics Championships.
