(★BREAKING) Watch IU’s Heartbreaking Speech About Jonghyun, At The Golden Disk Awards
IU just won the Digital Daesang at the Golden Disk Awards and her speech was totally perfect.
The Digital Daesang is basically the “Song of the Year” and is the biggest award given at the Golden Disc Awards. She beat out 30 other artists, including heavy-hitters like Taeyang, TWICE, EXO, BTS, Taeyeon, and more.
She started her speech by immediately talking about Jonghyun and how precious he was to her.
“To be honest, I’m still very sad. I sent off someone that was precious to me as a person, as a friend and as an artist to a very far away place.”
IU then confessed how she partially understood Jonghyun’s pain, and how she’s familiar with pain and suffering as well.
“I think I partly understand why he was in such pain and suffered so much, it’s not an emotion that I’m completely unfamiliar with. I’m still very sad and I feel apologetic to him a lot. “
With K-Pop idols (and regular Korean citizens) being pushed to work extremely hard, IU shares how difficult it can be to pause to dwell in their own sadness.
“But we’re people whose daily lives are so busy and we have to plan for our next month, next year. It’s sad and frustrating that our reality will not allow us to dwell on that sadness for as long as we want.”
She talks about the pressures of being an idol, the expectations placed on them to think of others first, and how sometimes.. idols need to think about themselves instead.
As a senior in the industry, IU ended her speech by pleading with her fellow artists to take care of themselves carefully.
Here’s the full speech, translated below:
To be honest, I’m still very sad. I sent off someone that was precious to me as a person, as a friend and as an artist to a very far away place.
I think I partly understand why he was in such pain and suffered so much, it’s not an emotion that I’m completely unfamiliar with.
I’m still very sad and I feel apologetic to him a lot. I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling this sadness. But we’re people whose daily lives are so busy and we have to plan for our next month, next year.
It’s sad and frustrating that our reality will not allow us to dwell in that sadness for as long as we want. Cheering when you’re happy, crying when you’re sad, being weak when you’re sick and not being at your best when you’re sick, I hope these natural things can be expressed without concern by artists and those who see them [in this condition] don’t think much of it either.
Artists are people who are supposed to console others and I get they are professionals, but I hope they will take care of themselves first as they are people too and console themselves so they don’t get sick and hurt while they are trying to hide these things.
I truly, sincerely hope this doesn’t happen.
I’m sure everyone is busy today and they have things to do tomorrow but I hope that all those who have won today can enjoy and celebrate today before they get a good night’s sleep and that is what I will do as well.
Thank you.
— IU
