Fans of BTS, especially Jungkook, exploded with anger because of a post by Billboard
BTS’s Jungkook set another record with the single “Seven” right ahead of his first solo album “Golden” release. In particular, the youngest member of BTS became the fastest singer to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify (108 days), surpassing pop star Miley Cyrus. While ARMYs were celebrating Jungkook’s achievement and raising expectations for the promotion of “Golden”, Billboard rejoiced with a congratulatory post but sparked controversy due to its caption.
On October 31st, Billboard shared a post congratulating Jungkook on breaking the Spotify streaming record. However, fans expressed frustration seeing the media outlet emphasize that the record was possible because it was a collaboration with Latto.
ARMYs criticized Billboard, pointing out that “Seven” is a pre-release song in Jungkook’s album and it succeeded thanks to the good promotion plan of the agency and BTS’s huge fandom. Latto actually reached No.1 on Billboard HOT 100 for the first time thanks to this collaboration with Jungkook. In fact, some fans even suspected Billboard of mistreating Asian artists and ignoring Jungkook’s impact.
As negative responses continued to pour out, Billboard deleted the controversial post and replaced it with a new one focusing on Jungkook and his record. This time, the media outlet did not even mention Latto.
Even after Billboard corrected the post, many ARMYs still expressed disappointment, saying Billboard should have respected Jungkook from the beginning. The controversy has not cooled down as some believe that Billboard’s removal of both Latto and the name of the song “Seven” from the post is also a disrespect toward the female rapper.
Source: K14
