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'Kingdom': Bobby reveals iKON's uncaring attitude was an act, the ranking hurt them

iKON was on the lower end of the ranks on Mnet's survival show 'Kingdom: The Legendary War'

Dive Podcast’s next guest for their Mindset collection happens to be none other than iKON’s Bobby. The series has roped in the likes of GOT7’s Jay B, Eric Nam, (G)I-DLE’s Minnie, Kard’s BM and more. Mindset is a space for artists to open up about the challenges they faced in the K-pop industry, mental health and personal hardships. In Bobby’s 14-episode edition, he talks about his trainee days, passion for music, iKON being his safe space and more. We got the second episode on June 10 and what struck fans’ hearts was when Bobby opened up about his time on the survival show ‘Kingdom: Legendary War’.

Following the success of the ‘Queendom’/’Kingdom’ series, Mnet announced the next edition ‘Kingdom: Legendary War’. They aimed to rope in already popular boy groups and have them compete against each other. We got the likes of BTOB, iKON, SF9, The Boyz, Stray Kids and Ateez. However, fans of all groups felt that the show was unfair at some point or the other as they claimed Mnet was rigging the scores to favor one participant over the other. But what caught everyone’s eye was iKON’s uncaring attitude as they looked like they had simply come on the show to perform on stage and make friends.

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Bobby talks about iKON’s time on ‘Kingdom’

Despite iKON ranking last or low, we got iconic moments on ‘Kingdom’ from Bobby vibing on stage in the preliminary round and being mischievous by breaking his ending pose. Fans found Chanwoo’s friendship with SF9’s Chani adorable while they cheered introverted Jinhwan for striking a friendship with Ateez’s Wooyoung. When Bobby, The Boyz’s Sunwoo and SF9’s Hwiyoung did not win their rap mission, Bobby had everyone amused as he sarcastically said "Oh no" when the scores were announced as if he expected the results. He also went viral for yawning during ‘Kingdom’s finale with fans relating to his nonchalant reaction to being on the show.

But it seems that it was all an act as Bobby has now revealed on his Mindset episode that their ranking on ‘Kingdom’ actually affected iKON immensely. Since 2019, they have had a rough time as they lost leader B.I aka Kim Hanbin to the point that they did not want to go outside, let alone attend promotional events like interviews and variety shows according to Junhoe. On top of that, Bobby got immense hate for announcing he was marrying his fiancée who was pregnant. Fans concluded that iKON only said yes to attending ‘Kingdom’ for their fans who were rooting for them.

Bobby said, “Our rank on ‘Kingdom’ had an effect on my mentality. I lost motivation. The entire team was down so I tried hard to get my mentality together and overcome this.” He also added that it was Jinhwan who helped him and iKON get through it, “Jay helped me out a lot to strengthen my mentality. He overcame hardships like they were nothing. Whenever the team was down, he was very proactive in trying to find a solution.”

'We can all agree that Kingdom was pure trash'

Fans were upset that Mnet put iKON through such a hard time. One fan tweeted, “KINGDOM was really that b*tch nkt just for us but for ikon as well.” Another pointed out, “Why iKON didnt have variety show appearance?why YG kept them hidden? They respect their decisions! Esp what they feel! They got invited to Kingdom and they decided to participate to the show for us!” One shared, “We all knew Kingdom was going to be a freaking nightmare…Bobby just let us know we were right and how much it f*ked them up.”

Another said, “Yg put them in so much difficulty on kingdom for nothing.” One fan added, “I think we can all agree that Kingdom was pure trash and a f**king nightmare. Using nothing but cheap tricks to create drama and gain views.” Another fan posted, “This is why iKON on kingdom was a mistake like it really affected them for no goddamn reason it was a shit show that proved nothing about any of the contestants.” One wrote, “F**K THE RIGOR MORRIS OF A SHOW THAT IS KINGDOM.”

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