THE BOYZ‘s Sunwoo has addressed backlash he received over an incident where he was alleged “disrespectful” to staff, telling fans that “even behind the scenes I would never act like that”.
THE BOYZ’s Sunwoo recently came under fire after a video of him dropping his AirPods went viral. In the clip, he’s heard exclaiming, “My AirPods!” before a security guard helps to pick them up and return it to him. Sunwoo was seen receiving the AirPods from the guard with only one hand, which sparked some criticism for an alleged “absence of a visible expression of gratitude”, with viewers interpreting the interaction as “disrespectful”, per The Korea Times.
Sunwoo first addressed the issue through a fan messaging platform on April 12, saying that he “understand[s] how it looks like I took it without bowing or showing manners” in the video. “I was looking for it with my eyes and couldn’t find it,” he wrote. “When it was handed to me, I did say ‘thank you’ but didn’t bow. I’ll make sure to act properly so these misunderstandings don’t happen again.”
A day later, the K-pop star touched on the controversy again, saying: “Even behind the scenes I would never act like that. Do people think I’d actually yell at a bodyguard to pick something up for me in front of fans? That’s absurd.”
Sunwoo said that he had been trying to “reflect on how I appeared, but it’s just a few seconds of video”. He also added that “the way people are leaving such harsh comments [is] scary”.
“At some point, it has to stop. I could’ve just stayed silent, but I felt like it would rot inside me if I didn’t say something,” he continued. “People who’ve only seen me for a few seconds might be upset, but those who’ve followed me for years know who I really am.”
원본 지워져서 재업
얘는 지가 진행하는 아돌라도 태도 별로라고 출연하는 게스트 팬들마다 한소리씩 하는데 언제쯤 고치려나 https://t.co/kZPPbwPHao pic.twitter.com/wDZ3GDRM7g— 뚀뚀 (Taylor’s Version) (@DDYODDYONIM) April 1, 2025
Notably, the video clip caught the attention of Korean actress and former After School member Nana, who left a comment on the original video saying “he needs to be scolded”.
She then addressed her comment via a fan forum, writing: “It’s wrong to judge a person based on a short video. I wasn’t judging his character, but his behaviour seemed very disrespectful and the video was quite shocking to me.”
The same day, his label ONE HUNDRED also issued a statement regarding the video and apologised for the controversy. “We find it regrettable that the situation is currently unfolding in a different direction from what we and the artist were reflecting on,” the agency said, as translated by Soompi.
ONE HUNDRED also added that it is looking into taking legal action against malicious comments about Sunwoo: “In order to protect our artist, we cannot just sit back and watch while unfounded and malicious comments are being posted about this situation.”