Fashion magazine W Korea (W Korea) hosted the breast cancer awareness campaign event Love Your W 2025, which has faced fierce criticism, and W Korea spoke out.
On the 16th, a W Korea official gave a brief statement to OSEN regarding the controversy over the Love Your W 2025 event, saying "We cannot respond."
Earlier on the 15th at a hotel in Seoul, Love Your W 2025 was the largest domestic breast cancer awareness campaign event that W Korea has hosted for 20 years. Dozens of stars attended, brightening the occasion with a gala dinner and party format.
However, online criticism followed that there were almost no mentions or performances actually related to breast cancer. In particular, public criticism exploded when Jay Park, who performed on the congratulatory stage, passionately sang his 2015 release "MOMMAE." The song contains lyrics that directly depict women's bodies and blatantly reference ample breasts, prompting repeated criticism that it "directly contradicts the purpose of a breast cancer awareness campaign."
A breast cancer patient raised her voice, saying, "I doubt the attendees even looked up the letter 'ㅇ' of breast cancer. It feels like mockery to patients." Another netizen angrily wrote, "They should have dropped the word breast cancer and just had a party. From the perspective of someone who lost a family member to breast cancer, the drinking and the 'MOMMAE' stage make you frown."
There was also structural criticism of the event's operation. At overseas breast cancer charity events, a pink dress code and pink ribbons are essential, but observers noted they were hard to find at the scene that day. Also, the fact that accumulated donations over 20 years amounted to only 110 million won prompted criticism that "this is far too little for a party of this scale."
Of course, there are opinions such as "What matters at a charity event is raising funds. Whether it's a party is not the issue," and "Celebrity participation is desirable for raising breast cancer awareness anyway."
As the controversy grew, Jay Park apologized on social media the next day, the 16th, saying, "It was a party performance that took place after the formal breast cancer campaign event ended, so I performed as usual," and "I apologize if any cancer patients felt offended or uncomfortable." He added, "I prepared the performance without pay despite my injury, so please do not exploit good intentions."
The organizer W Korea quietly deleted the video of Jay Park's stage when the controversy erupted. However, regarding inquiries about the issue, it only said it was "unable to respond" and remained tight-lipped.
[Photo] SNS
[OSEN]