He said it didn't hurt.
Singaporean busker Bryan Wong was punched in stomach by a stranger in the middle of his performance at London's Covent Garden on July 23.
A video of the incident was posted on TikTok by Mr Wong on July 24.
In the video, he can be seen talking to the man before the latter suddenly punched Mr Wong in the stomach.
Mr Wong grabbed the man's arm and the man pulled away before walking off.
The busker then turned the audience and said: "Everybody, I'm very sorry. I'm going to end the show. I can't continue like this."
He posted in the video: "I'm fine, but this sure was an experience."
In the caption, he wrote: "The audience was really supportive of me though. So that was really nice."
The video has more than a million views.
[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@brylights/video/7394938808510221585[/embed]
Mr Wong, whose stage name is Brylights, describes himself as a circus artist and street performer.
On July 25, he posted another video to talk about the incident.
"So basically, the guy invaded my pitch twice. The first time, he did it at the start of the show. I played it off like every busker does," recounted Mr Wong.
When the man did it again in the middle of the show, Mr Wong told him: "Can you just leave? Because I'm trying to do a show here."
The man then started kicking the busker's things.
"I wanted to usher him off the stage and that's when he hit me," said Mr Wong.
He said his friends didn't see what happened and the audience didn't know what to do.
"People asking why I didn't fight back. I mean, I'm a performer. I was doing a show and I was not only representing myself, I was also representing all the buskers in Covent Garden. So if I fought back, it would not look good on me. It would not look good on them."
Mr Wong added that his biggest regret was there were kids around to witness it.
"That's the worst of it. Personally, I don't care. The punch didn't hurt. Honestly, it's just sad to see some people live their lives like this, finding satisfaction in hurting other people. I think that's stupid and that's lame," he said.
"I'm not going to let it affect me."
Mr Wong said at the end of the video: "I came to Covent Garden to be a better busker, to bring better shows back to Singapore. So I'm going to focus on that."
In response to a Stomp query, he said: "I was only there for a month in July to improve my busking act and assimilate into the European busking environment before the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August."
Mr Wong told Stomp it was his first time in Covent Garden and he will be returning to Singapore on Aug 28.
[[nid:526007]]
This article was first published in Stomp. Permission required for reproduction.
