Do we like Bang Chan?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful in his own words turned up, he gives big and often, and the marks are a 2021 clip and two apologies for careless remarks.
Bang Chan grew up in Sydney, and at 13 he passed an audition and left his family to train with JYP in South Korea. He spent seven years as a trainee before debuting, and he was the first member of what became Stray Kids. He has said leaving home was “a great decision”, and that he wants to do a lot for the other members.
The biggest stoush on his record is from 2021, when an old clip of him dancing to Childish Gambino's This Is America went viral. Viewers accused him of mimicking a Jim Crow pose, which many read as racist. He apologised on Bubble, said he should have thought it through, and said Stray Kids do not support racism in any form.
In 2023 he griped on a live stream that some junior idols hadn't returned his greetings, joking that he might “sound like a boomer”. Fans read it as a dig at a rival group, and he apologised within days for the offence caused. It's the sort of own goal a leader makes when he talks too freely, and he owned it.
On the harm test, we found no words or acts from him against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no sign of him platforming anyone who does. That's a clean sheet, but also a quiet one: he rarely talks politics, so we can't tell you where he stands on trans rights. The 2021 clip is the one real stain.
The recent stuff shows the same pattern. After Stray Kids' Japan stadium run, he used Bubble to tell off a person who kicked Felix's suitcase at the airport, asking “Aren't you ashamed” and warning that people could get hurt. He went after the behaviour, not fans in general.
The giving is the real stuff. For his 29th birthday he donated 300 million won, split between a hearing-loss charity, World Vision and a marine-clean-up group. His agency reported it, and that's a pattern too, not a one-off. He's also the guy who tells his fans to look after each other.