YG Entertainment’s powerhouse girl group BABYMONSTER is facing unexpected scrutiny over an advertisement.
BABYMONSTER
The whole fiasco actually started with criticism of another popular artist, Maika Sasaki. When McDonald’s Japan posted a new ad campaign featuring the actress, it went viral on X (formerly Twitter), because netizens noticed that she only pretended to take a bite of the burger she was promoting in the ad.
She didn’t even take a bite or am I trippin 😭😭😭 https://t.co/XwcOFGx0WZ
— 🐝 Bee 🐝 (@SavinTheBees) May 6, 2026
This controversy then towed in BABYMONSTER’s previous advertisement for McDonald’s Korea, where all the members also appeared to be only pretending to take a bite of the burgers they were promoting.
What are they putting in those burgers no one eating https://t.co/bhoW5FQBcY pic.twitter.com/iKEUlMBtkn
— aklara (@eeclitse) May 6, 2026
Though the OP (original poster) brought up BABYMONSTER’s ad while joking about how it must be the fault of McDonald’s, the post soon attracted furious comments against the girl group and K-Pop idols in general. Many attacked them, claiming that the “fake eating” was part of being an idol, and even accused them of promoting eating disorders.
korea is a weird fuckin place man https://t.co/exmtue1DOO
— hasaan ⚝ (@monasriel) May 7, 2026
podrían poner la carne con la mejor calidad en esas hamburguesas y los idols seguirían fingiendo que la mascan porque antes muertos que comer algo con tantas calorías https://t.co/a3nnEE3WmI
— vemödalen⁷ 🦋 (@ivybIuee) May 7, 2026
They could put the best quality meat in those burgers and the idols would still pretend to chew it because they’d rather die than eat something with so many calories.
— The post above
No those are some diets for when they have to lose weight
— aklara (@eeclitse) May 7, 2026
Its bc south Korea collectively has an eating disorder lmao
— KirbyDontEatThat (@DylanAiPs) May 7, 2026
However, many reasoned that the fake bites were probably due to the burgers themselves being fake, a common occurrence in food styling for advertisements. Some also argued that if the burgers were fake, the company shouldn’t have made the models pretend to eat them because it only hurt their product’s image.
It’s obviously because it’s styled food which means it’s been painted and sprayed with all kinds of inedible things to make it look good on camera.
But in that case just… don’t have them pretend to eat it?
It makes their product look bad lmao https://t.co/Oa6hxxHopx
— onebytecafe (@one_byte_cafe) May 7, 2026
these replies are so stupid do people not know what they do to food in ads? no actors ever actually bite it https://t.co/T67hhIsun8
— treyarch (@circlesize) May 7, 2026
everyone conspiring about weight and diets and EDs when it’s quite obvious it’s literally just that no one eats the burger in an ad cause they’re not meant to. they’re just meant to look like they are. likely not even real burgers in these ads https://t.co/YB5CVGFmwW
— ash 애쉬 🙂 (@hiimynameisash) May 7, 2026
Whether the burgers were real or not, many fans agreed that targeting such young girls with vicious accusations over an advertisement was definitely not a wise move.