Throughout a decade of activity, the members of BTS have always been careful with their actions and words, even going so far as to “keep their distance” from female idols to avoid baseless dating rumors. However, some toxic individuals aren’t so easily deterred from targeting these top K-pop stars. Even when BTS members have no connection whatsoever to female idols, these people find ways to pair them and spread rumors relentlessly.

The recent victim of such groundless rumors is Jungkook, along with a famous 4th-generation female K-pop idol. Initially, the rumors started simply from noticing similar items they owned — items that thousands of others also have. But things escalated as toxic individuals continuously dragged the two idols’ names into any discussion where they were mentioned.

For example, in some recent livestreams, Jungkook mentioned that a close friend of his had asked him to sing “Love You With All My Heart” by Crush, and shippers as well as haters immediately speculated that “this friend” was that female idol. In another livestream at the end of November, a friend came to live at his house, and he shared that they had eaten gwamegi (half-dried Pacific herring) and drank soju together. They even mentioned the female idol’s name, accusing them of living together.

But unfortunately, the delusions of these obsessive individuals didn’t last long, especially after Jungkook's livestream on December 3, when he finally revealed who the only woman in his house is and who the friend he’s recently mentioned actually is.

Specifically, Jungkook livestreamed himself cooking pasta for a late lunch — a familiar routine of his when he has no schedule. While enjoying the plate of delicious homemade pasta, he still seemed a little hungry and thought about eating it with rice. He suddenly called out: “Imo~ We don't have rice, do we?” and a woman’s voice replied, “We do.” Then he spoke cutely: “I wanna eat this with cooked rice, could you please cook a bit of?” making it impossible for the woman not to agree.

In кσяєαn, “Imo” is often used as a friendly, respectful term for women older than you who aren’t your relatives, such as restaurant staff, shopkeepers, housekeepers, or helpers — someone you’re close to but still show respect to, similar to “auntie” in English. The woman Jungkook addressed was clearly someone who helps him with the housework. Shippers and haters became a laughingstock after Jungkook personally called out the only woman in his house on a livestream.

At the same time, they couldn’t claim that the friend living with him was the famous female idol either, because he directly mentioned the identity of this friend during the same livestream. At the beginning of the broadcast, he shared with fans: “This friend who lives with me, is a friend from Busan. We've known each other since elementary school. We're close to a point we ask each other to shut up every day, for no reason.”

Immediately after, the male friend chimed in: “What are you on aboutttt!” and Jungkook teased him back: “Justttt shut itttttt~~” — and their laughter filled the kitchen, just as ARMYs reveled in seeing toxic individuals fail in their attempts to link Jungkook to some woman.

After these moments were widely shared on social media, fans were thrilled to finally strike back at those who had tried to drag Jungkook into baseless dating rumors over the past few months:

- winkook shippers ended again. leave Jungkook and winter alone this is the friend he was talking about in his lives and texting.

- Stop making ur own theory and imposed your view on him

- With all the weirdos trying to break in his house, im glad he has other people staying with him. Safety in numbers

- multiple shippers after making theories got to be clowns

- aw so this is the friend he talks about in his lives shippers were ended again

- This is how much private he is about his life. Nobody knew this friend of his until today when he mentioned it himself. I hope you guys know not the believe any baseless rumours about him.

- went to japan for his work, has a friend from kindergarten living over, the way literally not a single one of his ship theories has been proven right to date

- Jungkook ended every variety of shippers today haha and gg stans too who said it's his gf...fcking losers stop poking nose in jk's life!!

- Ended shippers and man gatekeeps his friends just like he gatekeeps himself , cos how are we just finding out this now? I'm glad he kept his life private and only shared when it's necessary.

- clocked those shippers so bad, good job jungkook. this is the end of shipper era