{"id":953046,"date":"2026-07-23T01:46:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/953046\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T01:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:46:38","slug":"shark-week-on-discovery-stars-k-pop-star-rei-ami-and-comedian-ken-jeong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/953046\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Shark Week’ on Discovery stars K-pop star Rei Ami and comedian Ken Jeong"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Rei Ami,<\/a> whose voice helped fuel the hit movie \u201cKPop Demon Hunters,\u201d<\/a> recently found herself facing plenty of real hunters \u2014 watching from the ocean floor as about 16 reef sharks went on a feeding frenzy.<\/p>\n

She was scared, sure. But more than that, she was brought to tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d be a bit more petrified, but I was enamored. I was in awe. It was witnessing nature,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can\u2019t put it into words the emotions and the feelings that you experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewers can watch Rei Ami \u2014 and hear her sing a new K-pop song inspired by her experience with sharks while off the Korean Peninsula \u2014 as Discovery Channel\u2019s \u201cShark Week\u201d<\/a> kicks off Sunday.<\/p>\n

Twenty new, hourlong shows<\/a> leap deep into the world of the ancient predators, from a record-setting dive attempt into shark-infested waters to trying to find out what triggers giant bull sharks to confront humans.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

A great white shark in a scene from \u201cSecrets of the Great White Kill.\u201d (Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

A great white shark in a scene from \u201cSecrets of the Great White Kill.\u201d (Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

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\u201cGrowing up, I always watched \u2018Shark Week,\u2019\u201d says Rei Ami. \u201cYou see those epic commercials, with the great white jumping out and eating the chum and the tuna. That\u2019s ingrained in my brain forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actor-comedian Ken Jeong<\/a> joins her to start the week off with the show \u201cK-Pop Shark Heroes\u201d on Sunday. But while she went on two cage dives and two free dives with hammerheads and reef sharks and bull sharks, he preferred to stay out of the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more of the Christopher Nolan<\/a> of the shark \u2018Odyssey\u2019 \u2014 just overseeing it,\u201d Jeong jokes. \u201cJust overlooking everything. High and dry. That\u2019s when I do my best work.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shark-a-thon<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Ken Jeong staying dry during \u201cShark Week.\u201d (Tito Herrera\/Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

Ken Jeong staying dry during \u201cShark Week.\u201d (Tito Herrera\/Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

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The seven nights of new shows ends Aug. 1 with a look at how great whites are moving further up the East Coast and an examination of how thresher sharks use their tails to stun and kill prey.<\/p>\n

One highlight is watching high diver Molly Carlson leap 50 feet (15 meters) from a helicopter into a Plexiglas cage in the ocean surrounded by circling reef sharks. She\u2019s OK with jumping from enormous heights, but sharks terrify her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was zero chances of me ever swimming with sharks. This was just not on my radar,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s always been my thing, and so for me to be invited to be on \u2018Shark Week,\u2019 I was like \u2018Why me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewers will see Carlson, who has been frank about her struggles with anxiety, overcome her lifelong fear of sharks. Carlson hopes she can motivate others. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can inspire that next 16-year-old girl who wants to just hide in her room and never come out because she\u2019s scared of so many things, then I\u2019m absolutely going to find a way to do this,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019re allowed to be scared and do it anyways. And so I think that was the big purpose behind this project for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s highlights also include an attempt to locate a rumored 15-foot (4-meter) mako off the coast of Southern California, which would make it the largest ever documented.<\/p>\n

Marine biologist Kendyl Berna, a \u201cShark Week\u201d veteran who co-founded the ecology group Beyond the Reef<\/a>, says her team of scientists were betting on the fact that a marine heat wave has made mako prey in those waters abundant, allowing the sharks to get bigger.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharks are the cockroaches of the sea because they\u2019ve been around for 450 million years. They\u2019re older than dinosaurs, they\u2019re older than trees. Sharks have just been around, but the form that they\u2019re taking constantly changes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018Shark Week\u2019 is fun but also educational<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Molly Carlson preparing to leap 50 feet from a helicopter. (Tito Herrera\/Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

Molly Carlson preparing to leap 50 feet from a helicopter. (Tito Herrera\/Discovery Channel via AP)<\/p>\n

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\u201cShark Week\u201d has become a key part of the summer holiday TV schedule, a place where humans safe on land can see ancient apex predators unnervingly glide into view and snap open their jaws, fueling nightmares.<\/p>\n

As always, there is a deep respect for the creatures and strong science beneath the amusing titles, sharky puns, dramatic music and racy titles like \u201cChum Island: Catching a Killer\u201d and \u201cSharkzilla Takes New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile \u2018Shark Week\u2019 is very entertaining and thrilling, it is at the core very educational. And I think there\u2019s still so much misinformation regarding sharks and how they behave,\u201d says Rei Ami.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough these episodes, people can understand, there\u2019s really no reason to fear them, you know? And I hope that message gets received.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discovery\u2019s \u201cShark Week\u201d has a rival \u2014 National Geographic\u2019s \u201cSharkFest,\u201d<\/a> which also has hours of sharky content. And there\u2019s Amazon Studios\u2019 new movie \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Mouth,\u201d which has bull sharks terrorizing college students in a flooded cave system. <\/p>\n

\u201cShark Week\u201d also has practical advice about what to do when you find yourself face-to-snout with a shark, a rising concern from Korea to Brooklyn as interactions increase. The advice is clear: Stop splashing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s even more imperative that humans know how to act and react in a situation when they are in the waters and they see a shark,\u201d says Rei Ami. \u201cIt would really, I think, help the public to understand how these apex predators work and behave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Rei Ami, whose voice helped fuel the hit movie \u201cKPop Demon Hunters,\u201d recently found…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":953047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[435,26299,4219,171,9251,57,6467,383539,398,383540,975,147450,159,61,67,132,68,837,107],"class_list":["post-953046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-celebrity","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-crime","tag-entertainment","tag-fish","tag-general-news","tag-k-pop","tag-ken-jeong","tag-media","tag-molly-carlson","tag-music","tag-rei-ami","tag-science","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116966772513953532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}