Kevin Kreider is no traitor, but he is a trailblazer

Most people recognize Kevin Kreider, especially shirtless, from the history-making Netflix series Bling Empire that ran three seasons from 2021 to 2022. The show followed the lives of the rich and famous Asian elite in Los Angeles and became a game changer in Asian representation in the media as the first reality television show with an all-Asian cast. Kreider stood out, not only as the show’s male eye candy, but as the counter to his wealthy co-stars. Unlike his castmates, he grew up in a middle-class German and Irish family in Philadelphia after being adopted from Seoul at the age of three. 

After becoming the breakout star of Bling Empire, Kreider was casted in season two of the  Emmy-award-winning Peacock series, The Traitors. The murderous show follows reality television superstars who race against the clock to figure out who among them is a part of a secret group of “traitors” that each night “murder" one of the cast members. Kreider found himself in a dominant alliance that kept him safe throughout the season, only to unfortunately be slain by the traitors in last week’s episode. 

Although Kreider never imagined he’d do another reality television show after Bling Empire, one factor really stood out to him in deciding to do The Traitors: “I found out that there were no Asians.”

“It was going to be a very white audience and I just said to myself, ‘Oh, this is exactly what they need. They need to see an Asian being on screen in their television,’” Kreider says from his LA home, shortly after his elimination. “Tuning in to watch the people that they're used to seeing but then seeing an Asian guy will be very disruptive to their normal psyche, especially seeing an Asian that's not stereotypical. I’m nothing that has to do with kung fu and martial arts, or being a foreigner or speaking a different language or trying to fit in. All of these things we want to tell stories about too, but we also want to be seen in other playgrounds.”

“I’m nothing that has to do with kung fu and martial arts, or being a foreigner or speaking a different language or trying to fit in. All of these things we want to tell stories about too, but we also want to be seen in other playgrounds.”

Kreider initially wanted to be a traitor but was quickly glad to retract his hopes when meeting the cutthroat cast. Having made it through nine episodes, well past the halfway point of the season, his successful strategy was to lay low. 

“I didn't want to be too much of a big personality, or too controversial, because I've seen in the past how they are the first one to get banished or murdered,” Kreider says. “I wanted to keep cool during the whole game just in case I was recruited as a traitor at some point. I wanted to play not too loud, be myself, but also to not try to get so much attention so that if I became a traitor at any point of the game, I didn't have to change that much.”

Kreider’s gameplay had a lot of criticisms from houseguests like Janelle Pierzina and Shereé Whitfield who’d call him “too goofy” or “too dumb” to be a traitor.

“When I heard them say that, I was like, ‘Okay, that's exactly what I wanted from you. That's exactly the thought I want going through your head, that I'm too dumb, so of course I can't be a traitor,’” Kreider says. “Because I hoped that the traitors would have been smart enough, which they haven't been, to realize that ‘Oh, [Kevin] would actually be a perfect recruit. Nobody even thinks of him being a traitor! [Laughs] But, look, what really would have helped me is knowing a little bit more about people's backgrounds and who they were. I'm not a reality TV junkie. Even watching one or two episodes, or seasons, of any reality show wouldn't have helped. I mean, like, you're going across a decade of reality TV with the people [in this season].”

 

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After watching how wholesome and non-problematic Kreider was on Bling Empire, it was definitely jarring to see him compete with the likes of renowned evil reality television masterminds this season. But although he lost to the traitors, Kreider believes some of his former co-stars and other Asian celebs would be great for future seasons.

“I actually thought that two people, my girlfriend Devon Diep and also Christine Chiu, would have been great at finding out traitors because they just have such great bullshit radars, so I think they would have been great at that game,” Kreider says. “The one person I’d love to see, but I don't think would ever do the show, is actually Daniel Dae Kim. I think he'd be great at this game, and you know how smart he is! I think he could put on a great poker face and have a great bullshit radar.”

Although his time on Bling Empire never involved the impending threat of being killed in your sleep by a Real Housewife, it did in some way prepare him for The Traitors, and in no way prepared him for the battles to come. 

“Getting in front of a camera for Bling Empire on a daily basis helps for Traitors, but the game itself is one you can't be really prepared for because it's so intense,” Kreider says. “It's two to three weeks of filming. It's very intense, long days, short hours to sleep, jetlag and flying, and just taking away from your home normality. Whereas Bling Empire, yeah, it was a much longer time to film, but you get to live your normal life. You get to just worry about having fun with people or going in, just filming and being your best self. Whereas here you have to be careful with everything. You have to be careful with what you say, who you trust, or if you say too much or say too little. You start to get in your head way more than you'd like. The Traitors is very psychological.”

Kreider also had to shift from coming from an all-Asian cast to being the only Asian in the competition, which came with some interesting interactions.

“Well, firstly, I thought it was an honor, but there's a little bit of social pressure, because you want to represent, being the only Asian, as well as you can, and I also want to win,” Kreider says. “But note, none of the white people have heard or seen Bling Empire. The minorities [in the cast] have though, and so I found that kind of interesting, even though it was a very well known show, especially in the reality TV world. It was very odd to be there and be seen as like, well, a lot of the white girls there were like, ‘Oh, you're just the hot guy here…Oh, you’re giving me Keanu Reeves vibes.’ Which was kind of cool because I didn’t think that when I was growing up. There was just a little bit of an adjustment, there was like a day or two I had to adjust to personalities. But, I think the great part about being Asian is that we maneuver.”

Kreider has worked extensively in advocating for a shift in the way Asian male bodies are perceived in society, from doing a TED Talk on Asian male desexualization and demasculinization to participating in The Ugly Model Documentary with the likes of NBA legend Jeremy Lin. He believes these misconceptions about the Asian body continue to exist today, even experiencing it in an instance on the show. 

 

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“Even when I was in this season of Traitors, there's a scene where MJ [Javid] just automatically assumed that I was the ‘beta male,’” Kreider says. “All of a sudden the conversation went to ‘Kevin, you're a beta male and threatened,’ and I was like, ‘What did I do to give that perception off? Oh. Right. Yeah.’ So it’s still there. It's still clear.”

After almost a decade of advocacy work on the matter, Kreider feels like the world is starting to finally see Asian men for who they truly are and can be. He acknowledges the rise in K-pop as a pivotal part in this shift, but also, gives it some criticism. 

“BTS and K-pop did a lot for us for music and put a lot of Asian men on the map. I just feel like we just need more versions [of being Asian], and not just one,” Kreider says. “I think now the way we're going is the right way, we just need more. We need way more versions of what Asian men could look like: somebody who's transgender, gay, straight, muscular, we just need more of it. So I think Hollywood needs a change in their mindset. I still think there's a lot more work to be done.”

With his two hit shows behind him, Kreider is now setting his sights on two pursuits that are heavily inspired by his lived experiences as an Asian man—entrepreneurship and producing.

Kreider formerly suffered from alcoholism, an addiction he felt was heavily influenced by the drinking culture in Asian cultures.

“I mean, look at Koreans today, they get drunk with their bosses, they have to drink. ‘If I drink, you have to drink.’ That's a sign of disrespect if you don't. Like, it's totally ingrained in me,” Kreider says. “For a while I didn't think I could be an alcoholic because I was Asian, but that's totally false.”

Kreider makes a completely valid point given how prevalent alcohol is in modern Asian American social cultures. I think of those Mulan and Shang Li “ABG/ABB” memes that were so popular on the internet, mocking how drinking Hennessy was our identifier at parties. I think of the discourse on our ongoing battles with “Asian glow.” The age limit for drinking in many Asian countries is basically non-existent. Seeking help in the Asian community is an unspoken stigma, from alcoholism to mental health disorders.

Kevin Kreider has high hopes for the future of Asians in entertainment.

Courtesy of Kevin Kreider

With eight years of sobriety under his belt, Kreider is using this history as a means of inspiration behind his current entrepreneurship effort—he created his non-alcoholic beverage company, SANS, to create an alternative drink that can mimic the feeling of drinking without having a lick of alcohol in it. 

“Being sober for so long has really inspired me to create a beverage that was resembling my life experience in wishing I had something like this growing up,” Kreider says. “When I was growing up getting sober during the times I chose to drink a lot, there were no alternatives. So I think the idea of a brand that speaks and resembles my story would be powerful for others. And I was the first founder, I think, to be really public about being sober and [also be] Asian.”

While SANS is succeeding at providing alternative means to enjoyment, Kreider is not giving up on entertainment entirely. With his girlfriend Devon Diep, he has created ALLS Productions, a production company that creates the stories they want to see in Hollywood in the future.

“ALLS stands for ‘Asian Led Love Stories,’” Kreider says. “The reason why we created it is because we really want to tell stories that could be without race, but still be Asian. We think that love stories can change the perceptions of not just men, such as how we're speaking about Asian masculinity, sexuality, love and romance, but we also see an opportunity to share more stories of second chances and hope for all of us. We’ve gotten so many good responses since we started. We’ve gotten a lot of great love stories full of action and romance. We have a lot of great opportunities with comic books coming out right now, too. So we're developing, we're incubating, and we're going out there with our stories.”

You can keep up to date with the slate of projects ALLS Productions is releasing here, including their upcoming YouTube series Life After: With Kevin and Devon that follows Kreider and Diep after Bling Empire.