BTS' Jin rebounds as Olympic torchbearer for Korea

BTS' Jin will have yet another achievement to add to his list as the K-pop star has been chosen as an Olympic torchbearer for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, reports NME.

Jin will be representing Korea as an Olympic torchbearer, making this his first distinguished individual accomplishment on a global scale. Along with other BTS bandmates, Jin was once honoured to serve as a UN special presentital envoy in 2021, reports ABC News.

This is great news for BTS fans, as in June 2024, the star was involved in a scandal. Jin was released from his mandatory military service on June 12, according to Yahoo. However, after his release, the star got caught up in a scandal involving his 'hug meet' fan meeting, where police got involved.

Jin is a member of one of South Korea’s biggest boy bands, BTS. His full name is Kim Seok-jin.

Jin was born on December 4, 1992 in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. He is currently 31.

According to WeVerse, Jin, like his BTS co-member V, is a descendant of one of South Korea's most prestigious clans, the 'Gwangsan Kim Clan'. The clan's ancestors include several Neo-confucian scholars as well as Silla royalty.

Did you know?: StyleCaster reports that Jin had initially wanted to be an actor and had been training for it. However, this changed when joined Big Hit Entertainmnent, where they transitioned him for debut as a K-pop star in BTS.

And the rest was history as Jin had become part of one of the world most influential K-pop boy bands with being a member of BTS, and also with his solo work.

Prior to his enlistment, Rolling Stone reports that Jin had collaborated with British rock band Coldplay to release ‘The Astronaut’, which became a global hit in 2022!

Fans were understandably saddened to hear that being a pop star doesn’t mean a pass from South Korea’s mandatory military service, when Jin had to leave the K-pop scene to enlist in the army on December 13, 2022, reports Kpop Herald.

Fast forward to now and Yahoo reports that Jin has finished with his mandatory military service on June 12! To commemorate this milestone, Big Hit Music organised a fan meet for Jin in the ‘2024 Festa’.

According to Korea JoongAng Daily, a lucky 1,000 fans will be able to meet Jin in person and receive a hug from him. However, the Times of India reports that the event was met with criticism because the conditions to qualify for the lucky 1000 were changed without notice.

Continuing, fans were led to believe that those who purchased more albums would have an advantage in being among the lucky 1000, making qualifying for the meet unfair.

Allkpop reports that the pressure from fan criticism has led to Big Hit cancelling the terms for qualifying to be part of those who will have the privilege to hug Jin.

Continuing from Allkpop, this also led to concerns being raised about Jin's health and safety for the meet, given that he will be made to interact with a large number of fans at once, just a day after being discharged from the military.

Image: jin / Instagram

The worries of Jin's fans were realised during the 'hug meet' when Soompi reported that several fans had attempted to sneak a kiss on the K-pop star without his consent while receiving their hug.

Image: jin / Instagram

Korea JoongAng Daily reports that the issue has escalated to police being involved, as reports have been made against fans who attempted to kiss Jin without consent. The case has been classified as s e xual harassment and is currently being investigated by the police.

Image: jin / Instagram