Asia-Pacific

Moonbin, member of K-Pop Band ASTRO, dies at 25

Outpouring of grief from fans following announcement by band

A portrait of Moonbin, a member of K-pop boy band Astro, is seen on an electronic board outside a funeral hall at a hospital in Seoul on Thursday. Photograph: by Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images

Livia Albeck-Ripka
Thu Apr 20 2023 - 06:55

Moonbin, a member of the K-pop band ASTRO, died on Wednesday at his home in Seoul, South Korea. He was 25.

The pop star’s death was confirmed by the band and its management agency in a statement in Korean posted to Twitter. They did not specify a cause.

“On April 19th, ASTRO member Moonbin suddenly left us and has now become a star in the sky,” the agency said. It called on fans to refrain from “speculative and malicious reports” so that his family could process the news. To respect their wishes, the agency added, the funeral would be held as privately as possible, with only family, friends and colleagues.

According to the Korean news agency Yonhap, Moonbin was found dead at his home in the upscale neighbourhood of Gangnam at about 8:10pm on Wednesday by his manager, who contacted the Seoul Gangnam police station.

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Moonbin, born January 26th, 1998, was an actor, dancer and model as well as a singer, who also performed as part of the band Moonbin & Sanha. ASTRO, originally a six-person male K-pop group, shot to fame in 2016 with their debut EP Spring Up. It was named to Billboard’s top 10 list of new K-pop groups that year.

In a statement shared early on Wednesday, ASTRO announced the cancellation of the Moonbin & Sanha tour in Jakarta, Indonesia, “due to unforeseen circumstances.”

News of Moonbin’s death reverberated throughout the K-pop world, as fans praised the star for introducing them to the genre, and mourned the sudden loss.

Moonbin is the most recent of a series of Korean celebrities in their 20s to have died suddenly. In 2019, the deaths of two other K-pop stars left South Korea soul-searching over what had gone wrong in one of its most popular cultural exports. Earlier this month, Jung Chae-yull, a 26-year-old South Korean actor, was also found dead in her home. Some, though not all, of the cases have been acknowledged as suicide.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

2023 The New York Times Company

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