Which ex-EXO member upset K-pop fans when he went on a TV rant about BTS?

Jan 15 , 2020

BTS perform at the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration in New York. Photo: Yonhap/AP

Chinese celebrity Huang Zitao, a former member of the K-pop boy band EXO, has angered BTS fans when he was mistakenly identified as a BTS member by visitors in China.

On a Chinese entertainment show, the Chinese star from Qingdao, better known in Korea as Tao, approached four French women on the street. He wanted to see if they recognised him as a former K-pop star, a singer and an actor in China.

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Their initial encounter was followed by his offer to take a picture together with the women.

After the photos were taken, the women asked him: “BTS?” Tao, seemingly embarrassed, answered: “I’m not BTS.” One woman told him: “You look like a member of BTS.”

EXO member Huang Zitao, known as Tao, was mistaken for a BTS member. Photo: Instagram

“Oh really? Thank you,” he responded. “You know EXO? I was an EXO member before,” Tao said. The women laughed uncomfortably. The two parties went their separate ways.

Then the former SM Entertainment member started ranting at a camera crew filming the scene.

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“Edit this part out,” Tao said. “They said I looked like a BTS member. I know EXO but don’t know about BTS.”

The embarrassed star, who walked out from EXO in 2015, kept saying, “BTS back then was less popular than EXO, and now people say to me I am a BTS lookalike. Sorry, I have just become a BTS member by someone.”

On an unidentified Chinese entertainment show, Tao, right, was mistaken for a BTS member. Photo: YouTube

YouTube, Twitter and other social network video clips of him with the women started spreading online. But most of the clips’ streaming sources became unavailable as of January 12.

But the clip had already drawn online criticism against Tao. The critics condemned him for comparing his former band to the now world-class band BTS. He was also criticised for calling himself a former EXO member when he had voluntarily quit.

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One of three Chinese members of EXO (who all left the band), Tao filed a suit against SM to prove that his contract was no longer valid. His writ claimed SM “signed with me unfairly by wielding absolute authority over me, and the 10-year contract period was too long. It had limited my freedom to choose professional and economic activities.”

His suit was dismissed at a provincial court in 2017. The court had ruled that 10 years was not as long and intrusive to his private life as he claimed. The court decision had also ruled out the unfairness as the contract reportedly abided by the Fair Trade Commission standards of Korea.

By 2018 his appeals were dismissed at appellate and supreme courts, ending the legal dispute.

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This article was originally written by Ko Dong-hwan for The Korea Times.

K-pop scandals

The famous Chinese celebrity was told he looked like a BTS member, angering fans when he dissed the rival K-pop group