Recently, two groups of HYBE Group, CORTIS and ILLIT, attended a special lunch for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics team, along with the President and First Lady of Korea.
This event features live performances from idol groups in front of athletes. This is an honor for rookie groups like ILLIT and CORTIS.
However, a video recording CORTIS's performance at the event began to spread on social networks and caused controversy.
The video quickly attracted wide attention after a post described the stage as "shameful". The video uploader commented that the audience seemed very "indifferent" throughout CORTIS's performance.
In the video, many viewers also commented that the crowd of athletes below was quite quiet and interacted less than expected.
As this video continued to spread and was shared by many people, netizens reacted negatively. Some people criticized the overall quality of the performance as "bad quality", while others focused more on the audience's reactions than the performing artists themselves.
Other comments compared CORTIS's moment to the performances of other idol groups at many similar events before.
Even, a social media user compared the reaction to CORTIS to the reaction ILLIT received at the same event. Athletes seemed more excited when ILLIT performed the hit "Magnetic".
Conversely, CORTIS fans posted videos from different angles to defend the group. They pointed out that the viral video was only a small part of the performance, before that there was a moment when the athletes cheered when CORTIS stepped onto the stage.
CORTIS debuted on August 18, 2025 with 5 members James, Juhoon, Martin, Seonghyeon and Keonho. CORTIS attracted great attention as the first new boy group of BigHit Music (under HYBE) after 6 years, following the success of BTS and TXT.
Defined as a "young creative team", all CORTIS members directly participate in the process of composing music, choreographing and building image content; quickly affirming themselves as a group of rookies who are extremely well-prepared.
The group's debut album "Color outside the lines" immediately became a million-hit album, with accumulated sales exceeding 1.5 million copies. CORTIS also swept awards for rookies at major music awards ceremonies in Korea such as MAMA, Golden Disc Awards.
The group is expected to reappear in April with a new album.
