ENHYPEN’s Sunghoon Apologizes After Making Unintentionally Racist Typo
ENHYPEN‘s Sunghoon recently angered netizens after making a fatal mistake in spelling. As the star is not fluent in English, it was only natural that he was unaware of both the meaning of his mistake, as well as of the original english spelling.
Sunghoon had tried to communicate with international fans in English, wanting to write “good job.” As he was unfamiliar with the spelling, he ended up typing “good j*p” instead. “J*p” is a racial slur against the Japanese and is associated with anti-Japanese sentiments. The typo likely came around as the “Konglish” for “good job” is often typed out in Hangul as “good jab.” The “b” and “p” sounds in Korean are often interchangeable as well. This can be confusing for non-native speakers of English when trying to spell out a word.
Sunghoon quickly corrected himself, with the help of Jungwon who tried to defuse the situation by explaining that Sunghoon is Korean and therefore unfamiliar with spelling. As the situation grew, Sunghoon took to Weverse to apologize on July 7, 2025.
“During the listening party, I accidentally spelled an English word wrong and it became an issue. I fixed it later after I found out it was wrongly spelled. I had no intentions behind it and it was simply a misspelled word. Thank you to the ENGENEs who were worried for me. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Sunghoon has always been known for his hard work and attempts to learn various languages to communicate better with fans.
sunghoon speaking in english is so cute :( pic.twitter.com/40J15gP8H0
— ً (@archiveofhoon) December 29, 2022
👤: you're speaking in japanese all of a sudden
🐧: hehe..
👤: you're good~
🐧: I'll do my bestthey're praising him 🫶🏻#성훈 #sunghoon pic.twitter.com/D2nIK1mEdw
— rie (@pshaeayiee) April 28, 2024
