A night out in Toronto has turned into one of BTS's messiest weeks in years.
RM (Kim Nam-joon) and J-Hope (Jung Ho-seok) attended the second of two shows Chris Brown co-headlined with Usher at Rogers Stadium on August 12. J-Hope shared videos from the event on Instagram, quickly turning a private night out into a full-blown debate among fans. The pair were also seen posing for backstage photos with Brown and Usher.
The fallout was immediate. Zara Larsson reportedly unfollowed J-Hope and RM on Instagram after they attended the concert. The Swedish pop star has never been shy about her stance on Brown.
In a Cosmopolitan segment, Larsson was asked which artist she would never listen to and replied that she has many abusers blocked on Spotify, naming Brown as an example. She had previously worked with BTS, making the move feel pointed to fans tracking the situation in real time.
Reports on social media also claimed Megan Thee Stallion removed her follow of RM, though that has not been independently confirmed. The Houston rapper featured RM on her single Neva Play, released in September 2024 as part of her Megan: Act II reissue. She had previously collaborated with BTS on the remix of Butter in 2021.
What made the backlash cut deeper was context. Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault against Rihanna. More recently, he pleaded guilty to affray over a 2023 nightclub incident in London, with the conviction coming just weeks before the Toronto show.
For some fans, the criticism centered on RM's past public interest in feminist literature, including Cho Nam-joo's novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, which explores sexism in South Korea. Seeing him grin beside Brown backstage felt, to many ARMYs, like a contradiction they couldn't ignore.
Other reactions focused on BTS's largely female fandom and the influence that RM and J-Hope hold within it. The controversy also arrived on the heels of BTS's Google Gemini AI partnership, which had already drawn pushback from fans using the hashtag "ARMYsAgainstAI." Two controversies in rapid succession gave the criticism a compounding weight.
Not every corner of the fandom agreed. Some fans argued that attending a concert does not equal endorsement, and that policing personal music taste sets a difficult precedent. Others pointed out that Larsson may never have followed the individual members' accounts in the first place, and that she still follows the official BTS group page.
Meanwhile, fellow member Kim Taehyung, known as V, had been generating an entirely different kind of conversation. During the Paris Day 2 stop of the ARIRANG World Tour at Stade de France on July 18, he got emotional while addressing the audience.
"It still feels so unbelievable to me," he said. "We're Korean, we're not even French yet somehow, 92,000 people here in France came just to see us. Every time I think about it, it amazes me. I am just so so so so happy." Fans rallied around the moment, and it has since resurfaced as a counterpoint in the current debate.
Neither RM nor J-Hope has publicly addressed the criticism, and the backlash remains primarily a social media and fan-driven reaction. HYBE, their management company, has not issued a statement.
BTS is scheduled to perform at Rogers Stadium on August 22 and 23, the same Toronto venue where Brown and Usher played. The group will continue across North American stadiums through August before moving to South America in October and Asia later in the year.
Whether the controversy lingers long enough to greet them onstage in Toronto is something only the next week will answer.
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