BTS did not mention ex-South Korean leader in 2019 awards ceremony clip

Published on September 13, 2023 at 06:55
4 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

A clip of K-pop supergroup BTS has been viewed tens of thousands of times in posts that falsely say it shows band leader RM's "shocking comments" against former South Korean president Moon Jae-in. The video had been altered to replace RM's remarks during an awards ceremony with a made-up narration. He actually spoke about the importance of appreciating culture.

The YouTube Shorts video, titled "Shocking comments by BTS at awards ceremony" was viewed over 110,000 times since it was posted on September 8, 2023.

Audio from the 57-second clip of RM speaking into a microphone flanked by other BTS members had been removed.

Instead, a narrator can be heard saying: "Attention has been drawn to the strong comments made by BTS members after winning the top prize."

The narration alleges RM made "shocking comments" about how BTS was "used" by former president Moon throughout the last five years.

The singer supposedly said Moon "took us with him every time he went on a foreign trip to places like France, Saudi Arabia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates and asked us to perform for free" but the former president "abandoned us, in a way which even a pet owner can't do to his dog."

Enraged BTS fans called for Moon to take responsibility, the narration adds.

Screenshot of the false post on YouTube. Captured September 8, 2023.

The claim circulated after South Korea sought to salvage a problem-plagued scouts jamboree in August with a massive K-pop festival -- with one lawmaker drawing backlash for suggesting BTS should reunite and perform.

The seven-member band is on hiatus to complete mandatory military service but Seoul's culture ministry said the scouts were gifted photo cards of the group worth 800 million won ($600,000).

The supergroup had joined Moon on diplomatic trips including to France in October 2018 (archived link).

They joined him again in New York in November 2021 as part of the former president's attendance at the UN General Assembly. South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo had reported at the time that Moon had not paid for the band's expenses on the trip (archived links here and here).

Moon's office denied the report, saying all expenses had been disbursed in full (archived link).

Similar false posts were shared on Facebook here and here, as well as here on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Comments left by social media users indicated they had been misled.

"How dare [Moon] use these world stars. I can tell these comments stem from deep anger," one wrote.

"Wow, [Moon] used BTS for free? What in the world?" another said.

Speech about culture

However, a keyword search on YouTube found the clip in the false posts corresponds to segments of a seven-minute video published on February 27, 2019, titled "Edaily Culture Awards BTS Grand Prize Award Speech (BTS RM Focus)" (archived link).

The Edaily Culture Awards are an annual ceremony honouring outstanding performance artists of various genres, according to its official website (archived link).

BTS was awarded best concert performance during the sixth annual awards held in February 2019 for the "Love Yourself" world tour that began in Seoul on August 25, 2018, the website says (archived link).

The video shows RM accepting the award on behalf of the band before giving a short speech thanking their fans and speaking on the importance of appreciating culture.

"I am reminded of the words of Kim Gu, who said all he wanted was the power of culture," RM said in his speech, referring to the Korean independence activist and politician (archived link).

"I believe that appreciating all forms of culture, not only that of my field in music but also that of traditional music, musicals, dramas, theatre and dance, as a fan and consumer, allows me to become more human, and that the music that I produce inspires in others the feeling of becoming more human as well."

Nowhere in his speech does RM mention Moon.

Below are screenshot comparisons between the false YouTube clip (left) and the original video from 2019 (right):

False YouTube video (left) and the original footage from 2019 (right)

A similar video of BTS being given the award and RM's speech can be seen on Edaily's official YouTube channel (archived link).

Edaily separately published a report containing the full transcript of RM's speech, which also shows he spoke about the importance of culture and did not mention Moon (archived link).

Other local media reports from South Korea highlighted RM's speech on culture here and here (archived links here and here).

Multiple keyword searches found no credible reports about RM or other BTS members criticising Moon publicly.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail