An appearance by the South Korean band was canceled because of a T-shirt one of its members once wore, featuring a photo of the bombing of Nagasaki.
HONG KONG — They have been called the world’s biggest boy band, and they were even recently enlisted to speak at the United Nations — the first K-pop group ever given such an honor.
But proving that even world-famous pop groups are not immune to political tensions, a Japanese television station abruptly canceled a live performance by the chart-topping South Korean band, BTS, on Thursday amid an uproar over a T-shirt once worn by one of the band’s members.
The T-shirt featured the well-known historical image of a billowing mushroom cloud rising over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, and some said it glorified the Americans’ use of atomic bombs against Japan at the end of World War II.
“After we talked to the band’s agency about the member’s intention in wearing the T-shirt, we have regrettably decided to call off their performance at this time,” read a statement posted on the website of Music Station, a program on the Japanese television network TV Asahi.
In a statement on its official website, BTS, also known as Bangtan Boys, apologized to fans for the cancellation, though they did not mention the T-shirt.
The article of clothing in question was said to have been worn by Jimin, 23, one of the band’s seven members, in a 2017 episode of the group’s reality television show, “BTS: Bon Voyage.” The T-shirt shows the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki just moments after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city on Aug. 9,1945, instantly killing more than 70,000 civilians.
A block of repeating text printed on the T-shirt alongside the image reads: “PATRIOTISM OUR HISTORY LIBERATION KOREA.”
The incident tapped into the deep well of resentment that still roils relations between the two countries, more than seven decades after Imperial Japan’s defeat in World War II liberated the Korean Peninsula from Japanese colonial rule (it was subsequently divided into North and South Korea).
