{"id":408013,"date":"2026-04-20T09:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/408013\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T09:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:33:08","slug":"bts-star-v-reveals-he-tried-very-hard-to-forget-about-the-group-to-focus-on-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/408013\/","title":{"rendered":"BTS Star V Reveals He \u201cTried Very Hard to Forget” About the Group to Focus On Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tBTS\u2019 V, Kim Taehyung, reveals why he \u201ctried very hard to forget\u201d the group during military service\u2014and how it reshaped his identity, music, and confidence\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kim Taehyung, known more widely as V, has spent much of his career as one of the most recognisable faces in global pop. But during BTS\u2019<\/a> temporary pause in 2022, the singer found himself confronting a different question: who is he without it?<\/p>\n

As the group stepped away for military service, Taehyung\u2014known to fans as V\u2014describes a period defined less by absence, and more by intention. For the first time in years, he wasn\u2019t performing, promoting, or moving at the relentless pace that had come to define BTS\u2019 rise. Instead, he made a conscious decision to step back from the identity he had built.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, while we\u2019re in the military, we can\u2019t perform even if we want to,\u201d he recalled in a recent interview<\/a>. \u201cSo I did really yearn to perform. I wanted to release an album, I wanted to sing and dance. I definitely felt that \u2026 desire? Let\u2019s call it desire. But since we were needed by our country, we had to do the best with our situation at the time. So I tried very hard to forget about V of BTS for a while, so that I could concentrate on living my life as Kim Taehyung.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: BTS Star V Returns to Acting in \u2018That Night, Our Decaf\u2019, Collaborating With Compose Coffee<\/a><\/p>\n

That separation became a defining thread of his time away. Rather than hold onto the momentum of his idol persona, Taehyung leaned into something quieter\u2014rebuilding from the inside out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat idea was so important to me. I knew that my time in the military was going to be quite long, so I thought very hard about how to spend it well and not waste it away. First off, I considered my values and my health. I tried to organize and give a lot of thought to my inner world, looking back on myself and contemplating the kind of person I ultimately want to become.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Taehyung, that meant stripping things back to basics. Over the course of his enlistment, he focused on routine and reflection\u2014working out, reading, and immersing himself in music without the pressure of output.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for that year and a half, I worked out a whole lot. Read a lot, listened to a lot of music. And I think that gave me the opportunity to rebuild my body and mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Books, in particular, offered a form of escape\u2014though not always clarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked my friend: \u2018Hey, I want to read! Do you have any books to recommend?\u2019 And they got so excited and recommended Han Kang\u2019s and Keigo Higashino\u2019s books. So that\u2019s literally all I read. There was also a book called Eleven Steps. It was kind of a philosophy book. But with any of the different books, I found myself putting myself into the text. Like imagining myself as a character in a novel, for example. I was so deep in my imagination at the time. Was it helpful? I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the effects of that period are visible\u2014not just internally, but outwardly too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just that \u2026 Actually, I found that after working out, I looked and felt different from when I didn\u2019t work out, both on the outside and inside. So I guess I have a more confident figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

That renewed sense of self carries into his solo work. His debut EP Layover reflects a version of Taehyung that feels deliberately unhurried, rooted in the genres he grew up with\u2014jazz, classical, and alternative influences shaped by his childhood listening habits.<\/p>\n

Read more: BTS Album Arirang Surpasses One Billion Streams on Spotify<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLayover came to me at a time when I felt the need to look back on my journey so far as V of BTS. The word \u2018layover\u2019 can mean a stop between destinations, but to me, it\u2019s expressing that my life is not a straight path. I want to say: I can make this kind of music, but I also like many other styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love jazz, classical music, and even more alternative music, so I wanted to share that with ARMY and our listeners. I genuinely love music with all my heart, and Layover is that representation of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as BTS moves into a new chapter together, Taehyung\u2019s perspective has shifted. The time apart didn\u2019t weaken the group\u2019s dynamic\u2014it sharpened it.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. And since all seven of us have had a solo career, everyone\u2019s individual ego is stronger now. I thought that might change things when we got together again, but we actually amplified each other and ended up making a better album. So I get the sense that our work is more polished than before.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Taehyung, stepping away from \u201cV\u201d wasn\u2019t about disconnecting from BTS\u2014it was about understanding what he brings back to it.<\/p>\n

And now, with that clarity, he\u2019s not choosing between the two.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s moving forward as both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BTS\u2019 V, Kim Taehyung, reveals why he \u201ctried very hard to forget\u201d the group during military service\u2014and how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[6432,93,61,60,6522,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-408013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bts","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-kpop","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}