Surprised Singaporeans pursued North Korean leader Kim Jong-un yesterday before realising the portly man with slick black hair near the Marina Bay Sands hotel was an impersonator. “It looked like the real Kim Jong-un, but later I realised it’s not the real one,” said Sagar Admuthe who was visiting from Mumbai, India, after several selfies with the doppleganger against a backdrop of the city’s bay. “When you see him, it’s very difficult to make out.” The Australian-Chinese man posing as the North Korean leader calls himself only Howard X and said he was appearing to wish success for a summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump to negotiate an end to the North’s nuclear programme. Howard X also made an appearance as Kim at the Winter Olympics in Gangneung in South Korea in February, bewildering North Korean cheerleaders who initially thought their leader had walked into a hockey stadium.
“I think the two leaders will sit down and they’re going to have a great time, because really they have the same personality,” he said yesterday. “They are going to be best friends right after this meeting.”|