Jaejoong has faced universal criticism after his April Fools' joke backfired.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, the K-Pop star, 34, claimed he was in hospital in Japan after flouting government guidelines and “living carelessly”.
However, after his post sparked concern from his fanbase, the singer, full name Kim Jae-joong, evidently backtracked on his first post, telling his 1.9 million followers that the April Fools' stunt was intended to make his fans aware of the government guidelines.
K-Pop news website Soompi translated Jaejoong’s updated post, which read: “Although this did go quite far for April Fools' Day, so many people worried about me in a short span of time...Oh and I don’t think of this as an April Fools' joke.
“I wanted to tell you that protecting myself is protecting the precious people around us...I will accept all punishment I receive from this post. I hope all of you are healthy.”
This isn’t the first time Jaejoong has played an April Fools' prank, causing concern amongst fans in 2017 after pretending to faint during a concert in Taiwan.
The seriousness of the coronavirus crisis has seen many people calling for the usual tradition on playing tricks on friends and family on April 1 to be scrapped for this year – with #NoAprilFools trending on Twitter.
Covid-19 has wreaked havoc across the globe, with America seeing the highest amount of cases worldwide and Europe being announced as the epicentre of the crisis.
Currently, the UK has over 29,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 2352 people confirmed dead from the disease.
