Esquire Faked Interview With AI Instead of Actor

Esquire Singapore published a cover story interview with One Piece actor Mackenyu without actually interviewing him. When the actor was too busy to meet, the magazine fed his previous interview quotes into Claude and Copilot to generate entirely new responses, then published the result as a feature. Fans are furious, particularly over a section where the AI discusses the pressure of living up to Mackenyu's late father, legendary action star Sonny Chiba. Neither Mackenyu nor his talent agency appears to have consented to or promoted the piece, and Kotaku reports the actor never responded to Esquire's emails.