AceShowbiz - Ken Jeong has donated $50,000 (£36,000) to the families of five of the people killed in the Atlanta shootings earlier this month (Mar21).

The shootings took place at multiple massage parlours in Atlanta and one in the suburbs - killing eight people in total. A 21-year-old white man has since been charged with eight counts of murder, and an aggravated assault charge.

Following the tragedy, numerous GoFundMe pages were set up for the families of the victims, with "The Masked Singer" judge Jeong donating five $10,000 (£7,200) amounts to the campaigns for the families of Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Xiaojie Tan, and Yong Yue.

Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, and Daoyou Feng were also killed in the shootings.

Jeong, whose parents migrated from South Korea to the U.S., also posted on his Twitter account about the fundraising campaigns, as well as sharing a video featuring himself alongside other Asian-American actors including Lou Diamond Phillips calling for an end to anti-Asian racism.

"Stop the pandemic of hate," Jeong said in the video.

The actor also talked to Seth Meyers about the rise in anti-Asian American hate crimes. "This is precisely due to weaponizing terms like China virus and kung flu. And also the fact that, in this particular crime, there's debate whether this crime is racially motivated," he said.

"Asian American women are two times as likely to be assaulted in America. This was clearly, clearly racially motivated. This was clearly a hate crime," he explained. "As a guy who used to be a doctor and whose wife is still practicing medicine, I have an idea of how to solve COVID. It's mask, vaccination, common sense, don't be an a**hole. But as a human, I don't know how to solve racism. It takes listening, learning, loving, being tolerant. But it really starts off, in our particular case as Asian Americans, this 'kung flu' s**t has to stop. And we really need to express that loudly. And we are."