On October 26, 2023, a video featuring three members of the 97-line – BTS‘s Jungkook, ASTRO‘s Cha Eunwoo, and NCT‘s Jaehyun — went viral online.
In the clip, a fan is seen walking up to the three idols enjoying a meal outside and asking them for autographs. After attempting to converse, Jaehyun politely tells the fan, “We’re really sorry, but we’re having our own time.”
why did you cut out the start of this video where you can see that girl walked up to them with the girl who’s filming? did you want to use it to try and start rumours? https://t.co/OHqtHuHtb6 pic.twitter.com/PiMSqv3MSF
— juu (@juuu_juuwfree73) October 25, 2023
In another video, the fan showed herself grabbing cups used by the idols and said that she also asked Jungkook to sing for her.
this is disgusting https://t.co/ln5qQWNVQZ pic.twitter.com/QxYp1PnMaA
— ㅅㅅ (@naevis98) October 26, 2023
As you can imagine, the interruption to the idols’ night out was not well-received, triggering outrage from online netizens. She eventually left short messages attempting to explain the situation, but her explanation was also met with scrutiny.
Now, the fan has directly reached out to Koreaboo to explain her side of the story.
The fan first explains that she has wished to explain due to the massive influx of hate and death threats she began to receive, saying that the only reason they asked for an autograph was in order to start a conversation.
“The only reason we asked for an autograph is cause it sounded like a conventional convo starter for them that they’d expect. We weren’t actually wanting one. We just wanted to have a chance to see them up close and talk to them. Our minds were racing and blanking out so in the heat of the moment, we couldn’t think through what to say.”
— Fan
She then says that she and he friend were not stalking the idols but instead ran into them by pure chance. The fan also explains they initially only asked for a lighter from the group to confirm that it was Jungkook with them.
“Also, we didn’t ask for a photo before. My friend asked for a cigarette lighter to the group the first encounter (here it’s common to ask strangers for that even if they didn’t have one, and confirmed my claim that I just saw jungkook. We want to apolgoise to ARMY fans for stressing them out, but pls be assured we are not stalkers and we bumped into them by pure chance.
And we hope ARMYs can forgive us for any ill feelings this caused.
We support the boys so much and look forward to their future releases.”
— Fan
The fan then addresses a secondary video recapping her experience with Jungkook, where she says she touched him.
she’s a straight up weirdo omg touching him and taking their cups??? https://t.co/G91Z9jqNAi pic.twitter.com/b6eAXQ6MJJ
— Lia (@Liatanniexo) October 25, 2023
She stated that this only happened as she moved him from the middle of the road to the sidewalk. The fan claims that Jungkook was not uncomfortable with the situation and even fulfilled her request to sing with her.
“The only reason I touched his arm is because he was standing in the middle of the road. So we guided him to sidewalk. I asked if I can sing for him and if we can sing togethe. My friend also asked him something and Jungkook interacted in response..”
— Fan
Finally, she reiterates that Jungkook was not uncomfortable during the encounter and that he stayed with them for a few minutes until one of the others who were with the idol came to fetch him.
“His song was playing in the background. Jk asked which song should he sing, he asked around 4 times. And he opted for his song playing in the background. He was putting in effort to sing and we all made eye contact, he wasn’t uncomfortable. He could’ve easily w walked away to his friends or tell us that he’s busy. But he stayed with just us for around minutes. Then, one of his friends, either Jaehyun or non-celeb came and took Jungkook, marking the end of the encounter.”
— Fan
The fan also offered a message of apology to ARMY, expressing their regrets over letting the situation get out of hand.
She wanted to give her perspective on things.
