In July 2019, an advertising campaign for the NETS E-Pay electronic payment system ignited a national firestorm over race after it emerged that Chinese Mediacorp actor Dennis Chew had portrayed an Indian man with artificially darkened skin. The campaign, created by agency Havas, cast Chew, who was well known for playing multiple characters in a single production, as four figures meant to show that e-payment was for everyone: a Chinese man and woman, a Malay woman in a tudung, and an Indian man identified on his lanyard as K. Muthusamy. It was the darkened face of the Indian character that drew accusations of brownface.
The outrage was swift and intense. Critics asked why people of the actual races depicted had not been cast instead of having one Chinese actor play every role, and argued that the ad reflected a casual insensitivity toward minorities. Havas and Mediacorp's talent arm, The Celebrity Agency, issued a joint apology saying they were sorry for any hurt unintentionally caused, but the statement was widely criticised for failing to acknowledge the use of brownface or demonstrate any understanding of why it was offensive. NETS also apologised, and the offending images were taken down from the E-Pay site, though posters lingered at places like Maxwell Food Centre.
The controversy then took an even more explosive turn. YouTuber Preetipls, whose real name is Preeti Nair, and her brother, rapper Subhas Nair, released a retaliatory rap video also titled K Muthusamy, mocking Chinese privilege with vulgar language and gestures directed at Chinese Singaporeans. Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam declared that the video crossed the line and was not acceptable, saying the government took a zero-tolerance approach to speech that attacked another race. The police opened an investigation, the Infocomm Media Development Authority ordered the video taken down, and the siblings apologised for the unintentional hurt caused. They were later given a 24-month conditional warning.
In a final twist, IMDA concluded that the original E-Pay ad itself had not breached the Internet Code of Practice, though it called the ad poor taste and reminded all parties to be mindful of racial and religious sensitivities. No criminal offence was found in the ad. The episode left Singapore with an unresolved debate: many felt the state had come down harder on the minority creators who protested than on the corporations that caused the offence, while others argued that both the ad and the video had crossed lines that a multiracial society could not afford to blur.