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Two members of K-pop supergroup BTS landed in hot water with fans this week for attending a Chris Brown concert in Canada.

Brown, the American musician with a history of violent incidents — including a 2009 conviction for domestic violence against then-girlfriend Rihanna — posted a picture with BTS leader Kim Namjoon and rapper Jung Hoseok on Thursday.

In 2016, Brown was arrested for threatening a woman with a gun at his home in Los Angeles, He was released on bail. In 2018, the singer was accused of co-conspiring with guests at his home who sexually assaulted a woman, although the case was dropped after a settlement was reached.

The next year, he was detained in Paris after a woman accused him of rape. The charges were later dropped and he was released.

In 2022, he was accused of drugging and raping a woman on a yacht in Miami. The woman, identified in legal documents as Jane Doe, said she feared for her life.

Most recently, a Los Angeles jury found Brown liable to pay $12.9 million to his housekeeper’s sister after his dog attacked her.

Netizens were quick to react, with some fans saying their views on the group had changed after its members’ support for a convicted abuser came to light.

One ARMY — a term used by BTS fans to refer to themselves — said they were sexually assaulted themselves and didn’t appreciate artists they looked up to supporting people who abuse women. “I am a woman before I am an ARMY,” she said.

As they are sometimes known to do, a lot of BTS fans ran to their idols’ defence as they faced heat from the internet. Users on X pointed out how dangerous it was for fans to defend artists when their actions hurt others and how it allowed “disgusting men [to] keep thriving and getting away with crimes”.

One user even asked fans who their target audience was with public posts defending the singers, because the stars likely won’t see the tweets themselves. “But your mutuals who have gone through domestic violence or abusive relationships will,” they said.

Some fans argued that celebrities were people too, questioning why it mattered if they went to concert of an artist they liked.

Netizens were quick to dismiss that argument, saying all people had a moral responsibility not to support abuse and domestic violence, and that responsibility fell so much more greatly on celebrities with massive fan followings like BTS.

Some broke down the fallacy of men who stay silent in the face of misogyny but still consider themselves not sexist by virtue of the fact that they themselves did not say the misogynistic things.

Others pointed out the responsibility that comes with having a large platform.

One user even brought up the example of Zara Larsson, who has collaborated with BTS in the past. In a clip shared by the user, Larsson is asked which artist she would never listen to and she replies saying she has many abusers blocked on Spotify before going on to name Brown as an example.

The controversy comes on the heels of a collaboration between the K-pop group and Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) agent Gemini, which also attracted the ire of fans over its disregard for the environmental impacts of AI.

The joint advertisement made with the aim of showcasing “the new possibilities that technology and art can create”, played on the Las Vegas Sphere last week.