Jungkook cried during the Paris concert, Day 2.
On June 18th, during the second and final night of BTS's ARIRANG World Tour at Stade de France in Paris, Jungkook couldn't hold back his emotions during the encore stage. The tears came, and they didn't stop for several minutes.
Fans who were there — and the millions who watched the clips afterward — felt a mix of things. Some felt their hearts ache. Some thought he looked endearing. And some worried. Is something wrong? Is he hiding something?
But Jungkook explained it himself. On Weverse, he wrote:
Happy tears. That's what they were.
Jungkook has always been honest with his emotions. He cries easily — and not just when he's sad. When he's overwhelmed with joy, the tears come too. The final night of the European leg, surrounded by tens of thousands of fans singing along, the happiness building up over weeks of touring — it all spilled over.
Some fans couldn't help but worry. He cried for several minutes straight. That's a long time to cry on stage.
And the concern makes sense, because in Korea, men are taught from a young age that crying is something to be embarrassed about. It's not that Korean men never cry — but the instinct is to hide it, control it, push it down. The other BTS members don't cry nearly as often as Jungkook does. They're Korean too. Even when emotions rise, they try to keep it together. They've shed tears at award shows a handful of times over the years, but compared to Jungkook, it's rare.
Jungkook is, by a wide margin, the member who cries the most in BTS.
(If you search "BTS crying" on YouTube, it's almost entirely Jungkook. Every single result. lol)
This is actually part of a bigger picture. Jungkook is different from the average Korean person in several ways.
The tattoos covering his arm, for instance — many Koreans still view them unfavorably. He's said repeatedly that if he wants to do something, he has to do it. That kind of attitude gets mixed reactions in Korea, where conformity is often valued. His pure, artistic nature. His radical honesty. These qualities set him apart from many Korean men his age. (We explored his personality in more detail in our MBTI column.)
The crying is the same. Other people might hold back tears out of embarrassment. Jungkook doesn't hesitate.
If you're a fan who's worried that something bad happened — think about who Jungkook is. This is someone who expresses his feelings to fans more openly than almost any idol. Someone who gets moved easily, who feels things deeply, who doesn't filter his emotions on stage. For someone like that, crying from happiness is the most natural thing in the world.
Here are some of Jungkook's most memorable crying moments. He cries for all kinds of reasons. Every single one of them is genuine.
1. Crying while writing a letter to ARMY
He was writing an honest letter to fans, and somewhere in the middle of it, the tears just rose up.
2. Crying after hearing a song ARMY made for him
During a livestream, fans played a song they'd created. The emotion on his face says everything.
3. Crying at the Grammy Awards
Standing in the middle of the Grammys — a stage he'd dreamed about — listening to another artist perform, it suddenly hit him. The other members noticed and teased him about it.
4. Crying at Wembley
Years ago, hearing tens of thousands of fans singing in unison at Wembley Stadium. Jimin cried a lot that night too. (That era almost didn't happen — BTS came close to falling apart before reaching stages like Wembley.)
Every time Jungkook cries, he says the same thing afterward: "I don't usually cry."
And every fan who knows him smiles at that. Because he does. He really does.
If he keeps performing this happily on the Arirang World Tour, we'll probably see more tears. On bigger stages. In more cities. For more reasons.