IVE member Jang Wonyoung has been hit with an absurd wave of body-shaming remarks from a Japanese social media user over her arm hair, drawing fierce backlash from fans around the world.
According to a report by Sports Kyunghyang on October 22, a Japanese X (formerly Twitter) user uploaded a photo of Wonyoung — who serves as a global ambassador for jewelry brand Bulgari — on October 21, writing that they “still can’t believe how bushy Wonyoung’s arm hair is.” The post, described by the outlet as vulgar and disrespectful, quickly drew widespread criticism.
The report notes that Japan has an unusually strict social atmosphere toward women’s body hair, where visible arm or leg hair often invites ridicule, and women face pressure to remove hair from adolescence. In contrast, when earlier photos showed light reflecting off the soft fuzz on Wonyoung’s arms, Korean and global fans had gushed that she looked “like a baby rabbit” and “like a soft doll.”
DIVEs, IVE’s fandom, pushed back hard. Fans quoted in the report wrote that “Japan seems to be the only country this obsessed with a woman’s body hair,” that “having hair is natural for a human being,” and that “Japanese men just realized Wonyoung is a human being.”
No official statement was available from Starship Entertainment at the time of publication. The outlet closed by noting that the outdated standards aimed at Wonyoung — one of K-pop’s most celebrated visuals — left a bitter aftertaste for fans worldwide.
