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BLACKPINK meets fans for 10th anniversary
From left are K-pop girl group BLACKPINK members Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé. The four gathered at the National Museum of Korea in central Seoul, Saturday, for a meet-and-greet event celebrating the group's 10th debut anniversary. Captured from Lisa's Instagram
By Pyo Kyung-min
Meeting takes place amid backlash from fans over agency's mishandling of event
K-pop girl group BLACKPINK marked its 10th debut anniversary Saturday with a meet-and-greet for 40 fans at the National Museum of Korea (NMK) in Seoul, closing a week during which the group's fandom accused its agency of mishandling the milestone.
All four members — Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé — attended. It was the first time the group appeared before fans in Korea since its Goyang concerts in July last year.
"Today is the day BLACKPINK turns 10," Jisoo said on a Weverse live broadcast before the Saturday event. "It's an important day for us."
Rosé said the decade had gone by in a blur, and that it did not feel like 10 years had passed. She then brought out a cake topped with a "10" candle and handed each member a bouquet, prompting Jennie to call her "the romanticist of our team." Lisa said she had been too nervous to eat and had listened to BLACKPINK songs while getting her hair and makeup done.
Jisoo also used the broadcast to address criticism of the event.
"We originally wanted to see many more people," she said. "We knew this was an important day, but there seems to have been a problem in our communication. I feel sorry about that."
K-pop girl group BLACKPINK holds a Weverse live broadcast ahead of a 10th anniversary meet-and-greet with 40 fans at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, Saturday. Captured from Weverse
YG Entertainment announced the event on Thursday, two days before the scheduled meet-and-greet, with applications open for roughly nine hours and attendance capped at 40. Fans holding paid Weverse memberships as of July 31 could enter, and the notice said members would attend "depending on their schedules," language that fueled speculation the group would not appear in full.
The agency confirmed the attendance of all four members the next day and disclosed the venue hours before the event.
Online fan communities criticized both the scale and timing, pointing out that the group met 88 fans for its eighth anniversary in 2024, and that the only anniversary project announced in advance was merchandise.
That collection, released Saturday by the NMK under its official merch brand MU:DS, comprises seven items such as a pink moon jar and a paper fan.
The museum has worked with BLACKPINK before, hosting a listening event for the EP "DEADLINE" in February.