Do we like G-Dragon?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A decent record and plenty of giving, but a slur-printed shirt that only his agency has apologised for, and very little on record about where he stands on anyone's rights.
G-Dragon, born Kwon Ji-yong, is the face of BIGBANG, the group that helped take K-pop global. In October 2025 he received the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit, Korea's second-highest arts honour, and became its youngest recipient. At the ceremony he said he wanted to share the honour with his bandmates for the group's 20th anniversary.
His biggest brush with trouble came in October 2023, when Incheon police investigated him on suspicion of breaking the narcotics law. He denied it through his lawyer, saying he had never used drugs, and cooperated with the probe. Police later dropped the case for lack of evidence, so there was no conviction and no charge to answer.
The messy one is from May 2026. At a concert in Macau he wore a long T-shirt under a short jacket, and when he turned around the back showed a Dutch phrase containing a term for Black people that outlets describe as a slur. His agency, Galaxy Corporation, apologised two days later and promised to overhaul its styling checks. None of the reports we read carry a word from G-Dragon himself, which is the bit that stings.
On the wider harm check, we found nothing from him on LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate, either way, so it's a thin record rather than a clean one. Screenshots shared in September 2025 claimed he had liked Instagram reels about Donald Trump; he and his agency hadn't responded, and a like isn't a statement. In May 2026 he liked, then removed, a post about a statement from actor Kim Soo-hyun's agency, which split fans.
Lately the legal news has been friendly. A composer filed a police complaint in November 2024 alleging G-Dragon used a song without permission, and police searched YG's headquarters in 2025. In October 2026 they found the allegations couldn't be substantiated and closed the file.
The good stuff is real money, not just trophies. In June 2025 he put 880 million won into his own JusPeace Foundation to help treat teenagers recovering from alcoholism. It's a cause close to the drug-case drama he went through, and it's backed by actual cash.