It all happened so fast. Off the back of their anthology album’s release in June 2022, BTS shared a prerecorded dinner with fans. Amid a delicious-looking display of shrimp and meat and side dishes, the boys announced that they were taking a break from making music as a group to pursue solo projects.
When we look back, the announcement wasn’t surprising — BTS spent the past decade living and making music together, so a break to find their own personal sounds and stories was perhaps overdue. But in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, the news of BTS’s break elicited a kind of hysteria: Hybe’s stocks tanked (this would be BTS’s management company), many observers speculated that the “hiatus” would look like One Direction’s (namely, BTS would never return as a group), and fans began to plan for their lives without constant updates from the Tannies ( some resolved to work on themselves ). The dinner was a harbinger of an announcement that led many to self-identify as a military wife: BTS is now on a three-year hiatus to complete mandatory service.
Off the heels of their October concert to promote Busan’s bid for the 2030 World Expo, the band announced their intention to serve in the military sequentially until a planned reunion in 2025. (Korean men are required to begin their 18-month service by the time they turn 28, though BTS was granted a two-year extension for their cultural achievements.) Jin, who turned the big 3-0 in December 2022, was the fir.