While I commend those researchers tasked with uncovering just how massive BTS’s fandom, ARMY, really is, I can’t help but think that it is an impossible task—they are the biggest boy band on the planet, and the number of listeners who fall for their charms multiples every day. That said, do you know who their biggest fan is? I’m talking, their largest, physical fan?
John freakin’ Cena.
In January 2020, Cena appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden and gushed about his love of BTS, telling the host, “I became interested in the fact that they are a Korean pop band and they were the first Korean pop band to actually connect everybody throughout the world, fans throughout the world.” At that point, I shed a single tear, and then he had the audacity to share his biases, “RM and J-Hope.” I’ve committed the entire interaction to memory, and now I have another one to fawn over: On September 29, Cena appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to, once again, gush about BTS.
“I love what this band has done,” Cena tells Fallon, “They’re this massively popular thing—and they’ve been so massively, globally popular for so long, so I was like, ‘Okay, I should probably know about this.’”
He continues:
“So when I started to look at BTS and listen to the music, I was originally drawn because there are rappers in that crew. And they use, on some of their intro tracks and their bookend tracks, they use sick ass boom bap beats and actually rap, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I kind of like this, this is great.’ So I got interested in the music, and then I got interested in what the music stood for, and they advocate self-love, they advocate ‘don’t be afraid of failure,’ they advocate that you are enough. They’re trying to shatter all the stereotypical difficulties and uncomfortable situations that we go through, and they are catering to an audience that is living that: young people. That’s why they’re so popular around the world. One, they’re great performers, but it’s the message they send; it resonates with the people. And on top of that, they’ve developed this global ARMY, this BTS ARMY, that is not just geeked out fans. Like, BTS donated one million dollars to Black Lives Matter, and the ARMY was like, ‘yo, if they can do it, we can do it.’ Fans, who are already coming out of pocket to support artists, came out of pocket more to support charity. And this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. BTS charity gives a bunch to philanthropic causes... That’s impressive.”
Wow, right?
Without a doubt, Cena is BTS’s biggest fan—he is a 16-time WWE World Champion, a title only a very large person could acquire—and he just looks like a big man? According to StarsUnfolded.com, a presumably reputable source, Cena is 6'1", 250 pounds with a 50-inch chest, 36-inch waist and 19-inch bicep. That’s a big boy. A big boy that loves BTS.
And now you know.