It’s Grammys season, and boy am I excited! While the musical award show has drawn some criticism over the years, I can’t deny that I love watching along to see which artists attend, perform, and snatch up Grammy awards each year. With the show right around the corner, I’m wondering just who is going to actually attend the award show this year. One of the main groups of artists I’m curious about happens to be BTS. You know, one of the most known K-pop groups of our generation. With the group racking up three Grammy nominations, I just want to know — will BTS attend the 2023 Grammys? Calling all K-pop stans: Have we got some new for you.
The ARMY was ecstatic for BTS when it was revealed in November 2022 that the band accumulated three Grammy nominations for the 2023 season. BTS is a nominee in the Academy Award for Best Music Video, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Album of the Year (as featured artists on Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres), which all happen to be pretty major categories. Last year, BTS attended the Grammys, so fans have rightfully been wondering if they’d be attending this year, especially since the group accumulated their most Grammy nominations in a single year yet.
The K-pop band has also made Grammys history this year as they are now the most nominated Korean artist(s) with a total of five nominations throughout the years. Because of that, it just seems right that BTS would attend the 65th Annual Grammy Awards this year.
However, everyone knows that BTS members are required to serve in their country’s military per South Korea’s mandatory enlistment requirement. All Korean male citizens between the ages of 18 and 35 have to serve in the military for a time period between 18 to 21 months. BTS’ oldest member, Jin, is currently serving his enlistment, so we know that he won’t be attending the 2023 Grammys.
While the other six members of the K-pop group are planning out when they will, too, serve their time, I’m left wondering if they’ll all attend the award show. Some fans think that the group should altogether not show up since Jin can’t make it.
There has been no official announcement of BTS’ attendance — or has there? GQ Korea shared a post on their Instagram about the Grammys, in which their caption seemingly confirmed that bandmate RM would be representing BTS.
The since-deleted caption read, “Although all members cannot participate together due to Jin’s military enlistment issue, currently, RM is planned to attend the awards ceremony as BTS’s representative. You can tune in to the 65th Grammy Awards on Feb 5 at 9am KST.” Wow, talk about a spoiler alert. GQ then altered the caption for the post, removing any trace of RM’s name. BigHit Entertainment, who manages the group, has not confirmed or denied any of the rumors thus far.
Since then, even more rumors have been circling. Primarily, speculation began when the official Recording Academy Instagram account followed both RM and Jungkook. You may be wondering, what is the significance in a mere follow? They were nominated for several awards, so a follow doesn’t necessarily correlate to them performing… or does it? Well, I’m here to tell you that the page does follow a lot of the performers and nominees for the 2023 season. Insiders have also revealed that RM and Jungkook are set to travel to the United States to attend the Academy Awards.
Fans have mixed feelings on whether or not BTS should appear at the Grammys this year. While many are extremely proud of them, they just don’t have a nice taste in their mouth when it comes to the Recording Academy in general. It’s undeniably a remarkable achievement for the K-pop group (especially since they’ve made so much history thus far), so in the end, the decision is up to them.
Jungkook also subtly shot down rumors that he’d be traveling to the U.S. in February on a recent livestream. When the subject was brought up, Jungkook replied that he was “so disconnected from society,” laughing off that he had “no idea what’s going on in the company.” Was this an attempt to throw fans off about his potential Grammys attendance? I think that could potentially be the case.
Luckily, we don’t have to wait much longer to see if BTS will be present at the Grammys! If I had to guess, I’d have to say that RM and Jungkook are almost certain to show up and show out. That would be a win for ARMY members everywhere!