Suga reveals BTS’ secret to global stardom lies in humour: 'They’re just really funny. I think of them as family'

There’s a clarity to Suga when he speaks, often threaded with a dry, deadpan humour that can be easy to miss. Fans know the difference between when he’s lightly playing along and when he’s letting something more raw and unguarded slip through.

In the past 13 years, he has lived many lives, be it as the smiling Min Yoongi, his real name, or the global persona as Suga, or the raw, suppressed side of him that was revealed in his alter-ego Agust D, a man who said things that Suga wouldn't. But Agust D has gone for now, as Suga asserted in a new Rolling Stones interview. He walked 'through the open door' in the 2023 concert, indicating that all the negativity that Suga felt, went with him.

In the new interview, Suga was also asked about the 'secret' to BTS's success. How did this band of seven boys of South Korea become such a global phenomenon? Suga answered, "They’re just really funny. It’s fun to be around them.”

He went further, grounding the group’s friendship in something more lived-in than sentimental. “Since we’ve gone through hell and high water together … I think of them as family,” he says. Indeed, years of pressure, expectation, and visibility have been absorbed collectively, and what remains is a kind of chosen family forged under stress.

That, he suggested, is the mechanism behind it. “I’m sure that’s part of our success,” he added, “that we share such a strong bond. Plus, everyone is so talented. I think that’s why we’re able to trust each other on this journey together.”

Trust, in that framing, is not abstract. It’s what allows seven individuals to operate as one without dissolving into ego or fragmentation. It’s what lets them move through the phases of sonic shifts, solo work, global expansion—without losing the thread that first tied them together. Talent matters, of course, but in Suga’s telling, it is the glue of familiarity and friendship that makes the talent usable at scale.

There’s no attempt to mythologise the group or inflate their story into something larger than life. Instead, he reduces it to something almost domestic: people who are good at what they do, and who genuinely enjoy each other’s company. In an industry that often frames success as competition, BTS’ internal dynamic reads more like continuity.

If the group dynamic is built on ease, the public-facing side of Suga’s life is built on acceptance of the opposite.

The scrutiny that comes with global fame is often framed as a burden, especially for artists who grow up in it rather than step into it later. Suga’s response is matter-of-fact. “It’s just part of the job,” he says. “My job is to live within the eyes of the public.” Suga knows a little too well, what it means to be under the magnifying glass. But he keeps walking through.

There’s a kind of distance in his phrasing, an acknowledgement that visibility is not a phase or an interruption, but the condition itself. He doesn’t romanticise it, nor does he frame it as something to overcome. Sometimes, he admits, “it’s not convenient.”

But he draws a boundary where many might expect strain. “I don’t care how others see me,” he says. “And I never read others’ opinions about me. So I don’t think it’s particularly tough.”