In an unexpected twist in the feud between HYBE and Min Hee Jin, BTS’s Jungkook surprised the K-pop fanbase after giving strength to the members of NewJeans.

On September 14, the youngest BTS member apparently expressed his support for the girl group via the Instagram account dedicated to his dog Bam. “Artists are not guilty,” he captioned the post while sharing a new picture of Bam. His words alone made an impact, setting off an uncontrolled frenzy among netizens, who presumably couldn’t look away from the other symbolic mentions that accompanied the text. Jungkook’s Instagram caption included five heart emojis and a flexed biceps emoticon.

The colored heart emojis, arranged in an intriguingly chronological order, are usually used by NewJeans members to represent themselves. And so fans quickly came to the interpretive conclusion that the “Golden” album maker was “standing alongside” the young artists who share the same banner (ADOR) as the expansive multi-label company HYBE, which initially started its operations under the name BIGHIT Entertainment – ​​the home of BTS.

Read also | New lawsuit over “Squid Game”: Indian filmmaker accuses Netflix of plagiarism

Debates erupt after Jungkook’s post, which seems to address the situation of NewJeans

While some saw the meaningful gesture as a reason for applause, others believed that Jungkook’s SNS was hacked by NewJeans fans (Bunnies).

One fan commented, “Jungkook has been in the industry since he was 13. If anyone supports young artists, it’s him.”

Several others contradicted the allegations, saying that the BTS member rarely typed English subtitles for his posts. “This could possibly have been hacked by rabbits. The number of emojis and the English caption seem off.”

Hours later, another bam picture followed on the same profile with the caption: “Don’t use her,” presumably again alluding to NewJeans’ involvement in the sordid feud between the South Korean multinational entertainment company and Min Hee Jin, who was forced to resign from her CEO position at ADOR in the wake of the heated legal battle with HYBE.

Read also | Former NCT member Taeil’s sex crime case was referred to prosecutors without detention

Jungkook’s agency confirms his stance after fans claim his account was hacked

More BTS fans claimed that Jungkook’s account was hacked. However, others balanced the debate by pointing out that the pop star could not have voiced his support for the girl group on Weverse as HYBE staff often monitors this fan platform and could delete the post against his will. The person added in a lengthy statement that they specifically reached out to Bam’s Instagram page to post these comments as HYBE staff do not have direct access to it. “If he was ‘hacked’ he would have clarified that by now, it’s been 5 hours. Respect Jungkook, he is entitled to his own opinion!!,” the netizen claimed.

Similar to people defending Jungkook’s move, BigHit Music finally released an official statement on the case at hand. Regarding the “alleged” SNS posts on Bam’s profile, the company said: “We confirmed (with Jungkook) that the post was written out of the idea that young artists should not be drawn into disputes and should definitely not be used as a shield,” according to South Korean media reports.