Hybe Co., the entertainment giant that manages the globally successful Korean boy band BTS, lost as much as $1.7 billion of its stock value Wednesday after the bandmates confessed during a livestream that they are “exhausted” with their lives, need “time to think,” and are hoping not to perform as BTS for an indefinite amount of time.
Hybe, the corporation rising from the once-small record label Big Hit Entertainment, makes the vast majority of its profits off the back of BTS. Bangtan Sonyeondan, or the “bulletproof boy scouts,” debuted as a band in 2013 and have gone on to be the most internationally successful Korean popular music (K-pop) act of all time. BTS has been nominated for Grammy Awards, become the first Korean-language artists to top the Billboard charts, and broken multiple Guinness World Records. A potential “hiatus,” as media have dubbed the current expansion into solo careers, could potentially devastate the record label.
The members of BTS visited the White House last month at President Joe Biden’s request for a summit to address anti-Asian hate crimes in America.
On Tuesday, BTS appeared on a livestreamed dinner to celebrate “Festa,” what its fans have branded the anniversary of the team’s debut. On the livestream, published on Youtube, the bandmates lamented that their record label did not let them mature and overworked them. Rapper and band leader RM said of his bosses, “the problem with K-pop and the whole idol system is that it doesn’t give you the time to mature. You have to keep producing music and keep doing something.”
He later confessed that he “didn’t know what kind of group we were anymore” after the band released their most successful singles, the English-language “Dynamite” and “Butter.”
BTS released an album, Proof, on Friday.
Hybe has frantically been issuing statements to entertainment media insisting that the band is not on “hiatus” and that fans should expect more content from them, but as solo artists. The rift between the comments the performers made on the livestream and the statements from Hybe publicists – and the fact that BTS released an album less than a week ago – suggest that BTS was not authorized to express its desire to take a break from their grueling K-pop careers.
“HYBE stock fell to its lowest in 20 months. Shares closed at 145,000 won ($112) Wednesday, trading at a low of 139,000 won during trading,” Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported on Tuesday. “It was the lowest since Oct. 30, 2020 when stock closed at 142,000 won two weeks after it went public that month.”
Hybe stock has dropped over 60 percent from its peak price of 421,500 won ($326.42) in November 2021, shortly after the release of “Butter.”
According to Bloomberg, the collapse in Hybe’s stock value represents about 25 percent of the company’s former value, about $1.7 billion.
Hybe was far from the only South Korean stock facing critical value losses on Wednesday – the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed at its lowest since November 2020, taking down companies like Samsung and LG – but, unlike the other companies, Hybe’s losses are clearly related to the BTS situation at least as much as they are to fears of the U.S. Federal Reserve increasing interest rates or concerns about a worldwide recession, as the South Korean news agency Yonhap detailed.
The record label has issued multiple statements in the past 24 hours effusively insisting that the band is not taking a “hiatus,” a term it blamed on a mistranslation of a bandmate’s comments in the livestream.
BTS will “remain active as a team while taking individual journey to further achieve personal growth,” Hybe said in a statement republished by Bloomberg.
“The team never said it was taking a break,” a Hybe spokesperson told JoongAng Ilbo. “They made the announcement because BTS had always released albums as a group and they didn’t want to worry or startle the fans when individual releases start coming out.”
“To be clear, they are not on hiatus, but will take time to explore some solo projects at this time and remain active in various different formats,” another spokesperson statement read, this one sent to Billboard.
In yet another statement, republished by K-pop news site Soompi, Hybe insisted that no discord insisted between executives and the band members.
“BTS will start a new chapter in which they will simultaneously carry out team activities and individual activities. This will be a time for each of the members to grow with their diverse activities,” that statement read, “and we anticipate that this will foster BTS into a long-running team. The label will actively support this.”
The comments at the “Festa” dinner on Tuesday appeare to contradict Hybe’s united front messaging. RM, typically the most vocal of the group, was the most aggressive in condemning the record label system in Korean, often referred to as a “trainee” system: record labels recruit children and teens to train in dormitories, putting in grueling hours to memorize dance routines, practice vocals, learn foreign languages, and otherwise excel at pop stardom. Trainees do not “debut” without the record label ensuring perfection in the training camp. The industry has seen a wave of suicides of pop idols in their 20s in the past five years, since K-pop became a global phenomenon.
“I was thinking, ‘I cannot make a mistake. I have to become successful. I have to do well.’ And this psychological pressure was massive,” Kim Ji-hun, a teen performer who trained with BTS but did not make the cut told Vice magainze in February. “I went up on stage smiling, and then I suddenly froze. That was the first time I cried after becoming a trainee.”
Kim left the business and currently works as a government intern.
Speaking on Tuesday, RM, the BTS member, said he felt “trapped inside himself” and accused the record labels of leaving “no time for me to grow … as a human.”
“Doing group activities for so long — just like you guys mentioned earlier, I started to feel like I’ve become a machine. I have my own hobbies and things I want to do on my own,” Jin, another bandmate, confessed.
“We’re going through a rough patch right now, we’re trying to find our identity and that’s an exhausting and long process. Our fans know us and we know us,” Jimin, a third bandmate, stated.
Jimin has faced particular hardship related to Hybe as the record label failed to pay his health insurance premiums in January, resulting in the government – South Korea has a universal healthcare system – seizing his apartment during the same month that he was hospitalized with appendicitis. Jimin seemed to apologize for the affair in a vague statement following his meeting with Biden.
The band revealed on Tuesday that member J-Hope will be the first one to debut an official solo project. Another band member, Suga, released a single with “Gangnam Style” hitmaker Psy in April.
In addition to solo projects, band members will likely have to begin South Korea’s mandatory military service shortly. The government voted to grant BTS specifically an extension – allowing them to defer service from age 28 to 30, but Jin will turn 30 this year, meaning he has until December to fulfill the military service requirement. Military service has resulted in the dissolution and popular collapse of other boy bands, most notably BTS predecessor Big Bang, which saw two members involved in drug scandals and one convicted of sex trafficking following entry into mandatory military service.