Donghae Reveals He Almost Joined BIGBANG Before Super Junior

Super Junior's Lee Donghae dropped a bombshell on the latest episode of BIGBANG member Daesung's YouTube show Jip Dae Seong: he almost left SM Entertainment to join YG, potentially becoming a founding member of BIGBANG before the legendary group ever debuted.

The revelation came during Episode 104 of the show, which also featured Donghae's Super Junior D&E bandmate Eunhyuk. It immediately sent K-pop fans into alternate history territory — and made for one of the most entertaining idol talk show moments of the year.

The PC Bang Meeting That Started It All

The story began when Daesung casually asked Donghae whether he knew G-Dragon and Taeyang. Donghae's answer stopped the room: "I don't know them, but I've seen them." Which naturally led to the follow-up question: how exactly did that happen?

Donghae explained that as a trainee, he had a close connection with veteran K-pop artist Seven, who used to look out for him when he was young. One day, Seven called Donghae out to the Apgujeong district in Seoul — and when Donghae arrived, he found Seven already in a PC bang (internet cafe) with G-Dragon and Taeyang.

Both future BIGBANG members were still in their pre-debut days at YG Entertainment at the time. Donghae described the pair as being in unusually high spirits and seemingly unable to sit still. "Their energy was insane," he said. "They had an intensity I had never seen before." It was the kind of charisma that would later translate into sold-out stadiums and decades of hits — but in that moment, it just left a teenage Donghae quietly intimidated.

A Night of Awkward Silences and Korean BBQ

Donghae's telling of the rest of the evening became one of the night's funniest moments. After the PC bang session, Seven suggested the group go eat together — taking them all to a charcoal BBQ restaurant in his car, with hip-hop music playing as G-Dragon and Taeyang danced freely in their seats.

Donghae, meanwhile, sat in complete silence throughout the entire outing. "I couldn't say a single word to them," he admitted. Not at the PC bang, not in the car, not at the restaurant. Even when Seven tried to draw him into the conversation — with G-Dragon guessing the price of someone's pants — Donghae stayed frozen. "I was so nervous I just sat there the whole time."

Eunhyuk, sitting beside him on the show, pointed out the obvious: "You were just there as a head count. You should have gone home." The studio erupted in laughter. Donghae added one final observation on the cultural contrast he noticed that night: "YG and SM have completely different vibes. I felt that immediately."

The Revelation: He Nearly Became a BIGBANG Member

The story took a more startling turn when Donghae pivoted to what happened shortly afterward. During the 2002 FIFA World Cup, SM Entertainment cancelled plans for a debut group that Donghae had been part of. Left without a confirmed path to debut, Donghae heard that YG was forming a five-member group — and he wanted in.

"I told the manager I wanted to transfer to YG," Donghae said plainly. His SM manager talked him out of it. Donghae stayed at SM, eventually debuting as part of Super Junior in 2005.

"After I debuted, I found out the five-member group at YG was BIGBANG," he said. The implication settled over the room slowly. Donghae had nearly been a member of one of the most iconic K-pop groups ever assembled.

Daesung — who is of course one of those BIGBANG members — responded without missing a beat: "So one of us might not have been born." The deadpan delivery brought down the studio.

Why This Story Resonated With Fans

The story resonated far beyond its entertainment value because both Super Junior and BIGBANG occupy near-mythic status in K-pop history. Super Junior, debuting in November 2005, broke ground as one of the first K-pop acts to build a massive pan-Asian fanbase, particularly in China, where their popularity during the late 2000s and early 2010s helped define what K-pop expansion into new markets could look like.

BIGBANG, debuting in 2006 under YG Entertainment, took a different path — one that pushed K-pop further toward artistic individuality than any group before them. Led by G-Dragon, who became not just a pop star but a fashion and cultural icon across Asia, BIGBANG redefined what K-pop idols were allowed to be: songwriters, producers, and boundary-crossers. Taeyang brought soulful R&B to a genre that had leaned heavily on dance-pop, while Daesung carved out a reputation as a vocalist of unusual warmth and emotional depth.

Donghae nearly ended up in one world and instead defined another. His story from Jip Dae Seong is funny on the surface — the awkward trainee who could not say a word to G-Dragon and Taeyang at a PC bang — but it also quietly captures something real about how K-pop's greatest generation came together before the world was watching. Both groups shaped the industry in ways that still resonate today, and the thought of their rosters being even slightly different is enough to make K-pop fans do a double take.

Jip Dae Seong and K-Pop's Talk Show Renaissance

The episode is part of Daesung's growing YouTube presence through Jip Dae Seong, a talk show concept that has distinguished itself by pairing BIGBANG's gentle giant with guests from across the idol spectrum for conversations that tend to surface exactly this kind of story — personal, unscripted, and genuinely revealing.

Super Junior D&E — the sub-unit of Donghae and Eunhyuk — remains one of the most active and beloved duos in the broader Super Junior universe. For longtime fans of either group, Episode 104 of Jip Dae Seong delivered a rare moment of K-pop history that almost wasn't: a glimpse at the world where Donghae said yes to YG, and everything that would have changed as a result.

The clip of Donghae's admission circulated quickly across K-pop fan communities on X and Reddit, where threads dedicated to imagining an alternate-universe BIGBANG with Donghae in the lineup generated thousands of replies within hours of the episode going live. Several fan accounts noted that the story carries added weight given how foundational both groups proved to be — Super Junior for pioneering the large-group idol format that shaped the decade that followed, and BIGBANG for redefining what artistic freedom could look like within the idol system.

For Daesung, hosting the moment must have carried its own surreal quality. Sitting across from someone who almost joined his group — and hearing him describe how close it actually came — is the kind of conversation that rarely surfaces in the carefully managed world of K-pop press. That it happened naturally, on a casual YouTube talk show, made it all the more memorable for the fans who caught it.