BTS leader RM’s latest controversy has now spilled into a second wave of outrage, not only because of the original allegations, but because of how BIGHIT MUSIC reportedly chose to respond once the issue began spreading. What might have been containable as a damaging but isolated scandal has now become something far messier, with many netizens turning their anger toward the company itself.

According to the report, the uproar began after Japanese outlet Shukan Bunshun alleged that RM was seen smoking in non-smoking public areas and littering during a short stay in Shibuya, Japan. Those claims quickly triggered criticism online, placing RM under harsh scrutiny and pushing the situation into wider public discussion.

But the tension did not ease once the story broke. Koreaboo says that as the controversy intensified, neither RM nor his label directly addressed the allegations in a way that satisfied the public, and that silence only deepened frustration. Then, on April 23, KST, iMBC published a report claiming BIGHIT MUSIC had finally given a statement on the issue.

That statement is what appears to have pushed many people over the edge.

Rather than issuing an apology, the company reportedly asked media outlets not to publish stories using paparazzi photos originally supplied by Shukan Bunshun. The response, as quoted in the article, was described as an effort to request that news organizations refrain from reporting based on those images, while also saying the same position was being communicated to other outlets that reached out. In other words, what many people expected to be a moment of accountability instead came across, to critics, as an attempt to control circulation of the visuals tied to the scandal.

That choice appears to have backfired almost instantly. Koreaboo reports that netizens reacted angrily to what they saw as a vague and disappointing response, with some arguing that the company could have defused part of the situation simply by acknowledging it more directly. Others mocked the statement outright, suggesting the label had only made the controversy look worse by sidestepping the issue rather than confronting it head-on.

The article also highlights a sharper strand of criticism emerging online: for some commenters, the outrage is no longer centered only on the accusation that RM smoked in a non-smoking space. It has expanded into broader disgust over the alleged circumstances described in the backlash, particularly claims tied to a female employee cleaning up after the incident. That detail, amplified through online reactions featured in the report, appears to have intensified the moral anger surrounding the story and made the company’s restrained response feel even more tone-deaf to critics.

What makes the situation more explosive is that BIGHIT’s response did not calm the public conversation at all. If anything, it seems to have confirmed a fear many critics already had: that the company was more focused on limiting how the story spread than on clearly addressing why people were upset in the first place. That is the impression now driving much of the fury. The scandal is no longer just about RM being accused of misconduct in Japan. It is also about whether his agency chose image management over accountability at the exact moment public anger was already rising.

And that is why the backlash is refusing to die down. The original controversy may have lit the match, but for many observers, BIGHIT MUSIC’s reported handling of it is what poured more fuel onto the fire. Instead of closing the story, the company’s response appears to have reopened it in a harsher form, leaving netizens with the feeling that the apology they expected never came, and that the outrage they were already expressing has now found a second target.