Do we like Kai (Kim Jong-in)?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up and there's some real giving, but the record is mostly pop-star business rather than a public stand for anyone.
Kai is the dancer and singer from EXO, the SM Entertainment group that has been a K-pop giant since 2012. He has since built a solo career as well, and he told Uproxx in 2023 that “Because of EXO, there's Kai.” Credit where it's due: he is open about where he came from.
The newest chatter is a TV one-liner. On an SBS variety show in April 2026, Kai was asked how many EXO members there were besides him and answered “Right now? Five.” He also told castmates not to get their hopes up about guest spots at the upcoming world tour concerts. Fans read it as confirmation that EXO is now a six-piece, with some guessing a reunion with Xiumin, Baekhyun and Chen is less likely, but the Korea Times says no official change was announced.
That backdrop is a contract fight. Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin have been in a legal dispute with SM and have been left out of group promotions. Kai is not named as a party to it in anything we read, so it is a story about his bandmates and the agency rather than something he did.
On the harm check, honestly there's not much to report either way. Searches on LGBTQ+ people, women, climate and politics found no statements from him at all, and no pattern of working with people who push harm. That makes it a pass on the absence of evidence, and we'd say plainly it isn't a pass earned by campaigning for anyone.
On the good-person side, the record is clean in what we found. No court outcomes or credible misconduct allegations against him turned up, and he finished his 21-month military service in February 2025. In 2020 he donated 50 million won to the Hope Bridge Disaster Relief Association during the COVID-19 outbreak.
He tells Uproxx his stage persona differs from who he is in private, and says he is “actually, I'm a pure and kind person.” That's his own claim, so take it as a self-portrait, but nothing we found contradicts it. He also said he feels more comfortable in EXO because the members share the pressure.