The most “suspicious” music show wins in the Kpop industry: Nayeon and BLACKPINK were robbed?

tuleconghoaJuly 5, 2022Last Updated: July 5, 2022

3 minutes read

All idols work hard to get wins on Korean music shows, however, some wins were said to be “undeserving” and even “cheating”.

Music show wins are extremely important to Kpop idols, therefore, fans pay close attention whenever their favorites are nominated for a win. However, in many cases, the broadcasting stations that hold these music shows would miscalculate scores, and even give the win to the wrong artist, leading to distrust among Kpop fans.

Kep1er and TWICE Nayeon

Recently, rookie girl group Kep1er won against TWICE Nayeon on Music Bank. However, many netizens noticed that the broadcasting scores of Kep1er was maximum at 6000 points, leading to the win. They also expressed suspicions that TWICE Nayeon would lose to Kep1er when she had better digitals, SNS, and also physical sales.

nayeon kep1er thumbnail — *Kep1er’s Music Bank win caused controversies, especially with TWICE Nayeon as their competition*

twice nayeon pop — *Nayeon did well in all realms, and could have won without the suspicious broadcasting score*

LE SSERAFIM and Lim Young Woong

Ever since their debut, it seems that LE SSERAFIM constantly runs into scandals, starting with Kim Garam’s school violence allegations, followed by “cheating” accusations on Music Bank. In particular, many Korean netizens found it suspicious that the group managed to win against famous trot singer Lim Young Woong.

According to the revealed scoreboard, LE SSERAFIM’s title song “Fearless” recorded a broadcasting score of over 5000. Meanwhile, Lim Young Woong, despite his huge popularity in Korea, earned not a single point for this category. Fans of the trot singer even issued complaints to the police to investigate the suspicious scores, and the public and media also cast doubt on LE SSERAFIM’s win.

BLACKPINK and GFRIEND

On the MBC music program “Show Champion”, GFRIEND used to win against BLACKPINK, EXO-SC, Zico, and MAMAMOO Hwasa. However, the girl group was said to have received a “pity win”, seeing that their song “Apple” was less successful compared to competing tracks “How You Like That”, “1 Billion Views”, “Summer Hate”, and “Maria”.

hwasa zico — *Meanwhile, Hwasa and Zico were also powerful competitors*

BLACKPINK and EXO-SC

Music Bank is perhaps the music show with the most issues, as it awarded the win to BLACKPINK and “How You Like That” instead of EXO-SC, who actually won. In particular, a glitch in the system caused EXO-SC’s broadcasting score to be miscalculated, leading to BLACKPINK winning. The broadcasting station ended up having to apologize and take back BLACKPINK’s win, making it awkward for the artists.

exo sc blackpink — *BLACKPINK’s score was higher than that of EXO-SC on the live broadcast, but EXO-SC’s broadcasting scores were miscalculated*

TWICE and AOA

Similar to the aforementioned case, KBS also awarded AOA instead of TWICE during the promotion for “Cheer Up”, despite the scores showing the opposite. After being drowned in criticism by fans and netizens, the broadcasting station had to admit to their mistake and withdrew the win of AOA.