Previously, on September 14, Jungkook (BTS) suddenly posted a photo of his dog Bam on his Instagram account with 6 million followers, along with the message: "Artists are not guilty".
Jungkook clearly showed his support for NewJeans by adding a 5-color heart icon, representing the “Powerpuff Girls” characters that represent the 5 NewJeans members: blue, pink, yellow, green, and purple.
He then continued to post with the content: "Don't take advantage of them." According to the audience's speculation, Jungkook may be criticizing both HYBE Group and Min Hee Jin for using NewJeans as a shield in the conflict between the two sides.
Jungkook's support for his juniors amid the controversy was highly appreciated by many netizens. They said that BTS's youngest member had a brave attitude, not afraid of the management company but daring to express his own opinion.
However, according to Kyunghyang newspaper, the reaction of many HYBE employees to Jungkook's actions was not very positive.
On the Blind platform — a popular discussion site for employees in South Korea, where users are required to have a company email to post and comment — one employee shared Jungkook's post endorsing NewJeans and said, "I feel even more bitter. What did we work for?"
Other staff members quickly responded, mocking Jungkook's actions and worrying about HYBE's future.
"It looks like the company is really going down."
"Artists are not guilty, that's true. I'm not guilty either - so what are the guilty people doing right now?".
"Once again I realized we are just ordinary employees."
"Look at how this is being interpreted and how much controversy it's causing. What good is that?"
There are also other opinions that Jungkook's post was aimed at Min Hee Jin - former CEO of ADOR (the management company of the group NewJeans) and not HYBE.
Meanwhile, BTS' management company, Big Hit Music, released a statement clarifying Jungkook's intentions. The company said: "We have confirmed that he posted the post with the view that young artists should not be dragged into conflicts and used as shields under any circumstances."
But the media said that HYBE was deliberately "avoiding the issue" by explaining Jungkook's statement without a specific subject or object. This caused a debate between whether Jungkook criticized HYBE or Min Hee Jin.
