Simon Cowell’s new boy band calls BTS ‘terrible’

A new all-boy band launched by British television personality and entrepreneur Simon Cowell has stirred up a hornet’s nest with their remarks on popular K-pop band BTS.

The seven-member band, with representatives from the UK and Ireland, has landed in the crosshairs of K-pop fans after a member of the band called BTS “terrible” on a Netflix show.

In Netflix’s newly released show, The Next Act, Simon Cowell heads out on a journey to find the next One Direction in the global musical scene. The six-episode show ends with Cowell introducing the teen-pop band December 10 and its seven members — Cruz, Danny, Hendrick, John, Josh, Nicolas, and Sean.

However, soon after the show’s premiere, a clip from one of the episodes began circulating online. In the clip, despite the dark visuals, one of the members, named Cruz, is heard saying that his group could do something even bigger that BTS while calling the K-pop group “terrible”.

“If BTS can sell out Wembley Stadium in flipping five minutes, we could sell out flipping Pluto in five minutes… Nah, I’m being serious, they are terrible,” the artist said.

BTS fans, known as the Army, were quick to slam the new band over their remark, with many calling it a ‘trick’ to get attention on social media. Nonetheless, many BTS fans found the statement rude.

“Let’s ignore them. Very poor rage bait promo strategy to get their names trending on Twitter,” a BTS fan wrote on X.

Another X user said, “They are doing this for clout. We should stop talking about this, and most importantly, we must not engage with them on any platform. Before this, I had no idea who they were, and this was their very goal.”

“I mean… the ragebait is a bit funny to me because I just know these boys are gonna be cringe. But let’s just ignore them hahaha,” reads another comment.

The members of December 10 were chosen by Simon Cowell from multiple auditions in the UK and Ireland. The Netflix show is based on their journey.

BTS, as a band, last dropped a studio album in 2022. It was titled Proof. Currently, its members — RM, Jin, J-Hope, Suga, Jimin, V and Jungkook — are preparing for their 2026 comeback.

Simon Cowell’s latest music project, the boy band December 10, has attracted online criticism following a remark widely interpreted as a slight against K-pop group BTS, just days before the group’s official debut.

December 10 was unveiled in the Netflix documentary series Simon Cowell: The Next Act, which premiered on December 10, 2025.

The seven-member group, made up of Cruz, Danny, Josh, Seán, Nicolas, John and Hendrik, aged between 16 and 19, was formed after auditions across the UK and Ireland. The band is signed to Universal Music and is preparing to release its first music video on December 15.

Backlash emerged after a clip circulated on social media in which a member of the group said, “If BTS can sell Wembley Stadium in flipping five minutes, we can sell the flipping Pluto in five minutes.” The comment prompted criticism from fans, many of whom described it as ill-judged or deliberately provocative.

Some social media users characterised the remark as an attempt at attention-grabbing promotion. One wrote that it was a “very poor rage bait promo strategy”, while another said the clip would “follow them for the rest of their careers” if the band became successful. Others urged fans to ignore the comment altogether.

Comparisons with BTS have been amplified by the group’s seven-member lineup, a structure more commonly associated with K-pop acts than Western pop groups. Cowell previously found major success with One Direction, formed on The X Factor in 2010, though subsequent attempts to launch boy bands have met with limited success.

Despite the criticism, interest remains high around December 10, with audiences watching closely to see whether the group’s music will shift attention away from the controversy as they enter the global pop market.

A clip from Simon Cowell: The Next Act featuring pre-debut boy group December 10 has triggered an internet firestorm, not just for what was said, but for how precisely it feeds the outrage economy. In the viral moment, one member of his pre-debut band dismisses BTS as “terrible” while boasting that his own group could “sell out Pluto,” a remark that instantly drew the ire of ARMYs worldwide.

What sharpened the backlash was the casual invocation of BTS’s live-tour legacy. BTS’s historic Wembley Stadium sellouts in 2019 were not throwaway flexes or marketing gimmicks. They were the culmination of over half a decade of relentless work, years of grassroots fandom-building, constant touring, self-produced music, storytelling that resonated across languages, and a steady climb from small venues to global stages. For an Asian act performing largely in Korean, selling out Wembley twice was a cultural milestone, not just a concert statistic.

That context is precisely why the joke landed poorly. For many fans, it wasn’t banter but mockery of the labour, risk, and endurance it took for BTS to reach that level in an industry that rarely made space for non-Western pop groups. The clip has since been read as a textbook case of ragebait, content engineered to provoke anger, spike engagement, and pull eyes, especially by poking one of the most organised and vocal fandoms on the internet.

Many fans argue the pattern is familiar. Outrage scales attention; invoking BTS disparagingly almost guarantees virality. Context is sacrificed for clicks; December 10 has yet to release music, but a single remark has put them on the global conversation map. And while ragebait can deliver short-term visibility, it often damages long-term credibility if audiences sense cynicism overconfidence.

Intentional or not, the moment highlights how easily fandom passion is weaponised online, and how, in today’s digital culture, hype and hostility are often two sides of the same algorithmic coin.

After months of auditions, Simon chose the seven singers he hopes will make him a huge success again after X-Factor icons, One Direction, achieved stratospheric fame. However, after choosing his new group’s name, December 10 – which was the date the Netflix show launched – he found out there is another group called December Tenth – and they’re not happy.