Ashley Park has revealed she went into such a deep state of shock after the stars of BTS endorsed one of her performances that she didn't realize she was actually experiencing COVID symptoms.
The California-born singer and actress, 30, reveled in a dream-come-true moment on the set of her Netflix show Emily in Paris, when she performed the BTS megahit "Dynamite" during an episode on Season 2.
After "throwing it out there" that she would love to cover a song by her favorite band on the Lily Collins-fronted comedy, Park revealed that the producers "miraculously got the rights" to the chart-topping track.
Making an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday, Park told how she sported the memorable costume that saw one half of her dressed as a woman and the other as a man as she performed the up-tempo number.
"I remember being on set that day," she told titular host Jimmy Kimmel. "I was actually super nervous, because I hadn't been in front of a live audience in a while. Lily Collins, who's like the best most supportive person on set ever [was also there].
"I was like, 'If BTS we were ever to see this in an alternative universe, I would just wanna make them as proud as like they have made me as a Korean, as an artist."
Once the second season was released, Park, who plays Mindy Chen on the show, was shocked to learn that the singers had caught wind of her performance.
"RM posted on his Instagram Story a clip of it was like laughing along," she said. "I was dressed as half-man, half-woman with a moustache. So I was like, 'He could be laughing at me, but I'm just internalizing that he's laughing.'"
She went on: "Fast forward to a couple days later, V, Tae-hyung, he posted on his feed the video of the number... I was getting a manicure at the time and I couldn't stop shaking. It's a miracle I got the manicure."
From there, Park told Kimmel, her physical reaction only appeared to intensify.
"The whole rest of the day, as soon as he had posted that, I couldn't think, I couldn't talk, I couldn't like get up. And I was like, 'Is this what it feels like when your body goes into shock?' Like, my sinuses, my head was [foggy].
"I was like, 'I've never had this experience before—I've never been a fangirl to this extent.' I was just like, 'There is no world in which I thought they would even see it, let alone post it and approve it!'"
She continued to share that 24 hours later "my best friend Carly came over to this hotel I was staying at, and I was like, 'I don't know how to go on beyond this like what is beyond this? I don't know.'"
The unexpected answer came soon afterward for Park, who said: "I woke up the next day and I had to take a COVID test for something. I took a COVID test—I had Omicron, which is why I was in such a fog! Like, the whole day before, when I could not get up, I didn't think it was COVID, because I really just thought this was me going into shock."
"[You] thought it was BTS fever," quipped Kimmel. "They're both very dangerous. You're lucky to come out of those alive."
Singer V shared a clip of Park's Emily in Paris performance on his Instagram account on December 27, 2021. He added black and white heart emojis, in an apparent nod to her contrasting costume.
Speaking with Vogue about her musical performances on the show, Park recently said: "The music was that it was my wish list of genres. I was like, 'We're global. I would love to do a K-pop song.' And I couldn't believe we got the rights to 'Dynamite' by BTS.
"My favorite thing to do is interpret songs that are well-known and make them my own. I was like, 'I love Celine Dion more than anything,' and they let me sing a Celine Dion song and an old Broadway standard, 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.' It was so fun to do a variety of songs because I had no idea that when I was cast that Mindy would even sing."
It was recently revealed that Emily in Paris has been renewed for two more seasons.
