Hwang Jaekyun Stuns JTBC Studio With Surprise BTS Dance

Former professional baseball star Hwang Jaekyun left the JTBC studio — and the internet — speechless on May 11, 2026, when he performed BTS's "Holigan" during a guest appearance on Tok Pawon 25 (톡파원 25시). The moment, part of Episode 209, quickly became the broadcast highlight: a retired Grand Slam Emperor stepping into a K-pop challenge with the kind of total commitment that variety shows live for.

Dressed in sunglasses and a leather jacket he had clearly selected for the occasion, Hwang took to the studio floor while veteran MC Jeon Hyunmoo — who had introduced him as "number one on the broadcast hunger scale right now" — watched with barely concealed delight. What nobody saw coming was the level of skill Hwang brought: a full, rhythmically accurate performance that had co-host Kim Sook exclaiming "he's actually really good" and Jeon leading a round of genuine applause.

From Grand Slam Emperor to Variety Show Rookie

Hwang Jaekyun spent nearly two decades as one of South Korean professional baseball's most celebrated power hitters. The nickname 만루 황제 — Grand Slam Emperor — was not given lightly. It reflected a career defined by clutch performances under pressure, a quality that, as it turns out, translates somewhat to live television.

After retiring from baseball, Hwang began what he has described as a genuinely difficult transition. In a YouTube appearance on the channel 새고_F5-덕밥집 earlier this year, he admitted that entertainment work is actually harder than baseball — despite having trained his whole life for the latter. He also shared candidly that his income this year has been zero, a disclosure that landed with a mixture of laughter and sympathy. His stock investments, he added, are also down about 30 percent on one position, though he capped the confession with a cheerful declaration of patriotism toward the market he trusted.

The candor has become something of a signature. Where many athletes-turned-entertainers manage their public image carefully during career transitions, Hwang has leaned into vulnerability and self-deprecating humor — instincts that are making him genuinely watchable. The circumstances of his personal life, including his 2024 divorce from K-pop singer Jiyeon of T-ara, have added public scrutiny to an already challenging professional pivot. But Hwang has channeled the attention into energy rather than retreating from it.

How Jennie's Backup Dancer Prepared Him for This Moment

The BTS performance was not spontaneous — at least not entirely. Hwang revealed that he had specifically practiced the Holigan challenge for the show, learning the choreography from BLACKPINK Jennie's personal backup dancer. The choice of instructor alone — in the ecology of K-pop dance, working with a main artist's personal dancer is a significant endorsement — tells you something about how seriously Hwang is approaching his reinvention.

When co-host Lee Chanwon spotted a figure lurking behind the studio set and asked "Is that a dance teacher?", the reveal sent the room into laughter. That a retired baseball star had enlisted one of K-pop's more prestigious dance coaches to prepare a variety show moment was exactly the kind of self-aware commitment the audience didn't see coming. The instructor, for her part, gave Hwang a visibly warm review after watching him perform — a stamp of approval that only amplified the moment.

Hwang also credited ongoing voice coaching from Jeon Hyunmoo, his mentor and longtime friend. He told the panel that he had been deliberately pitching his voice higher, following Jeon's advice — a technical adjustment aimed at making him sound more broadcast-friendly. In one of the episode's funniest exchanges, Kim Sook noticed that Jeon's own voice had dropped notably low during the same broadcast. Jeon's deadpan explanation: "Because the correspondents are the main characters today." The studio erupted.

A World Burger Tour That Stole the Second Half

Beyond Hwang's performance, the episode delivered on Tok Pawon 25's signature format: immersive reporting from correspondents embedded around the world. This episode sent reporters to Japan and the United States for a deep dive into global burger culture — a category that, the show argued, has evolved well beyond the American original.

From Japan, the standout segment featured a soft shell crab tower burger: an entire crab placed whole inside the bun, shell and all, available for roughly 10,000 Korean won. The correspondent described the experience as feeling "luxurious, like eating Japanese omakase" — a description that provoked immediate yearning from the studio panel. A second Japanese highlight was the ssukgat tempura burger, made with crown daisy leaves, praised for its texture: "crunchy like the edge of a pajeon." The Japanese segment's argument was that no country takes burger creativity to more extreme or precise lengths.

The American segment, filed from Los Angeles, acknowledged the city's status as the nation's top burger destination — as voted by American diners in a 2023 survey. LA's burger culture, the correspondent explained, draws from decades of immigrant food influence that has produced flavors and combinations entirely unlike traditional American fast food. The contrast between Japan's food-creative precision and LA's cultural melting pot gave the episode a satisfying narrative architecture — and gave the studio panel material to react to across a full half of the broadcast.

The Rise of Hwang Jaekyun, Entertainer

What makes Hwang Jaekyun's entertainment debut compelling isn't simply his physical presence or the novelty of a famous athlete trying something new. It is the specific quality of his willingness to be genuinely vulnerable in front of an audience that knew him only as a champion. Admitting zero income. Confessing that his new career is harder than the one that made him famous. Spending an evening learning choreography from a K-pop dancer and then performing it on live television in a leather jacket — these are not the moves of someone protecting a legacy. They are the moves of someone building a new one from scratch.

Jeon Hyunmoo, one of Korean variety's most durable presences, visibly enjoys the mentor role, and the dynamic between the two friends — one an established entertainment veteran, the other a genuine newcomer — gives their segments warmth and spontaneity. Hwang's description of the friendship is telling: "He doesn't come to my house, so I go to his." The relationship, equal parts professional mentorship and genuine affection, may turn out to be the defining feature of Hwang Jaekyun's early entertainment career.

JTBC's Tok Pawon 25 airs every Monday at 8:50 PM KST.