One Ear at 30%: BTS V Hearing Loss Kept Quiet for Years

The BTS V hearing loss story broke without a press release, a statement or a single official word — just a Weverse livestream from a hotel room in Baltimore, a late meal on the table and Jungkook sitting beside him. Kim Taehyung, the singer the world knows as V, told fans that one of his ears now picks up only about 30% of what the other one does.

He has been living with it for roughly two and a half years, he said, taking medication and going to hospital regularly. It was the first time he had discussed it in public. He also traced the decline to his national service: it got worse in the army, he said, and at the time he assumed he simply wasn't mentally tough enough to keep up with group physical training.

For British fans, the timing lands awkwardly. BTS played two nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 6 and 7 July as part of the Arirang world tour, and nobody in that crowd knew that one of the seven men on stage was working with one ear at a third of its normal reach. According to RNID, around 18 million UK adults are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus — meaning plenty of people in that stadium were quietly in the same position.

What He Told Fans From a Baltimore Hotel Room

The broadcast followed the group's show at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. It was an ordinary post-gig hang: two friends eating, cameras rolling, no publicist in the frame. Then V put a number on something he had never named out loud, and Jungkook's face did the rest.

If one ear can hear at 100%, the other can only hear about 30%.

Caught off guard, Jungkook offered something of his own. He said he is on the verge of a stress fracture in his shin, and that it has limited how much he can jump and run onstage during the North American leg. Two injuries, one livestream, neither disclosed through the usual channels — which tells you something about how these things normally stay buried.

What BTS V Hearing Loss Actually Means

V gave a figure, not a diagnosis. No medical detail has been made public, no cause confirmed, no treatment plan described beyond medication and hospital visits. That leaves a gap worth filling carefully, because the specifics change how serious this sounds.

Why 30% in One Ear Is Harder Than It Sounds

Losing hearing on one side isn't the same as turning the volume down by a third. The brain uses the tiny gap between what each ear receives to work out where a sound is coming from and to pull one voice out of a crowded room. Take one ear largely out of the equation and both jobs get much harder — in a restaurant, in a car, and certainly on a stadium stage.

Why the Timeline Points at His Army Years

Count back two and a half years from now and you land in early 2024 — a few weeks into V's military service. He enlisted in December 2023 alongside RM, Jimin and Jungkook, served 18 months with a special task force unit under the army's 2nd Corps military police, and was discharged on 10 June 2025. His own account and the calendar agree.

Why Nobody Can Say Yet What Caused It

Loud stages, in-ear monitors, weapons training, infection, a one-off incident — all are plausible, none is confirmed. V hasn't said, and neither has anyone speaking for him. Anyone offering a confident explanation right now is guessing.

Why He Said Nothing for Two and a Half Years

Hearing loss is easy to hide. You turn your good ear towards people, sit on a particular side of the table, laugh at jokes you half-caught. Add a comeback year, a global tour and an industry where members are expected to look indestructible, and silence starts to look like the path of least resistance rather than a secret.

The 18 Million Britons in the Same Boat

Here's the detail that makes this more than K-pop news. Britain's official hearing loss figure jumped from 12 million to 18 million in 2024, and one reason was that researchers began counting people with hearing loss in just one ear — V's exact profile — for the first time. RNID also estimates 2.4 million UK adults struggle to follow most conversational speech, while only around three million use hearing aids.

What to Watch for on the Rest of the Tour

The tour rolls on to Rogers Stadium in Toronto on 22 and 23 August, with a run billed at 79 shows. Watch for whether the label addresses either admission, whether choreography or in-ear levels change, and whether any dates move. The practical takeaway is smaller and closer to home: at gigs, keep your distance from the stacks, take breaks outside, and use plugs. If your hearing drops suddenly in one ear, or ringing lingers for days, book an appointment rather than waiting it out.