The time j-hope almost left, and how it could have changed BTS

It's hard to imagine BTS without j-hope today, but during their trainee days, Hoseok decided at one point to leave Big Hit. Jungkook cried and tried to convince him to stay, and RM told the company they needed Hoseok. In the end he came back, mostly because he believed in the members he'd been training with for years.

The members themselves talked about the situation in the 2018 documentary series Burn the Stage. Looking back on the time before their debut, j-hope said he'd left the company. Jungkook immediately recalled how hard his leaving hit him, and RM recalled the conversations he had with people at Big Hit, trying to explain that Hoseok mattered to the group.

Nothing was certain at that point. BTS hadn't debuted, the final lineup was still taking shape, and the group's concept was still changing too. Hoseok had joined Big Hit primarily as a dancer. Before moving to Seoul, he'd been part of the dance scene in Gwangju and a member of the crew Neuron, while he started seriously developing his rapping during his trainee years.

Why he decided to leave isn't entirely clear. The members themselves didn't go into detail in Burn the Stage, so the stories that circulate on social media today should be taken with a grain of salt. It's often said that he didn't feel like part of the group, or that he had different plans, but there's no solid confirmation that this was actually the reason he left.

It's not confirmed exactly when all this happened either. We know it was during the trainee years, before BTS's 2013 debut, but the members never gave a specific year. What they remember much more clearly is how they reacted to each other.

RM told people at the company that they needed Jung Hoseok and that the group wouldn't be the same without him. Jungkook, still very young at the time and far from his family in Busan, reacted much more emotionally. He cried and begged Hoseok not to leave. When they talked about it together years later, they looked back on it with laughter, but at the time it happened, it clearly wasn't easy for any of them.

Hoseok ultimately came back. He explained that he believed in the members and thought they'd make it together. At that point, none of them could have known where BTS would eventually take them. They were trainees at a small company still fighting for a foothold in the industry, and debuting didn't yet mean a secure career, let alone success.

BTS debuted as a seven-member group on June 13, 2013. Within it, j-hope became a lot more than the dancer who'd first arrived at Big Hit. He became part of the rap line, a writer and producer, and over the years the members have often talked about how important he's been at dance rehearsals and in preparing performances.

His departure is sometimes retold today as the moment BTS nearly stopped existing, but that would be an exaggeration. We don't know what Big Hit would have done if j-hope hadn't come back, or what the final lineup would have looked like in that case. What we do know comes straight from the members: Hoseok decided to leave, it hit Jungkook hard, RM felt the group needed him, and Hoseok ultimately came back because he believed in the others.

Given what we know about BTS today and the place j-hope holds in the group, it's easy to understand why the members still remember that moment so clearly, even this many years later.