At the end of January, with Valentine’s Day on the horizon, Challenge + Survivor Turkey winner Turabi “Turbo” Çamkıran released his romantic song Wine Me, Dine Me. The track featured colorful lyric — in the US it would likely be slapped with a “parental advisory” warning — but the song resulted in his arrest in his native Turkey.
Apparently, the country determined the lyrics to be immoral and “demeaning to women.” The track was about pleasuring women and featured the line, “Don’t be a pussy, eat one, eat one.” You can see the original lyrics on Genius.
Turkey blocked access to the song about four days after its release. As a result, Turbo re-released the song as Kiss Me, Hug Me. The modified version replaces Turbo’s romantic side and portrays him as an animal activist, featuring the line, “Don’t be a kitty cat, adopt one.”
Apparently, obscenity arrests are fairly common in Turkey. Likely, the legal action wasn’t a shock to Turbo, but he felt so strongly about Wine Me, Dine Me‘s message that he released it anyways. It also meant the music video was pulled from streaming services, and it’s currently inaccessible on YouTube.
There is one thing that’s fairly uncommon about this song — it was successful. It was streamed over 3 million times on YouTube in under two weeks and encouraged tens of TikTok covers.
Fortunately, the legal action has not prevented Turbo from continuing his reality TV career, as he will be on Challenge Season 41. Let’s just hope he gets a chance to perform this song while on the show. If Emy got a chance to perform Alien during Spies, Lies and Allies, Turbo deserves his oppotunity, especially because his track actually accumulated a lot of online views.
Stop Being Polite 