Here’s everything we know so far about the hiatus, the fan response and why people are threatening to hang up their Eyekon hats forever if Bannerman leaves the group.
How did Katseye get to this moment?
It’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Katseye has been having their moment from a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and breaking records with their Gap jeans ad. Made up of Bannerman, Lara Raj, Megan Skiendiel, Yoonchae Jeung, Sophia Laforteza and Daniela Avanzini, Katseye has been lauded by long-time K-pop fans and American pop audiences alike for its use of the K-pop idol training style while simultaneously smashing some of the industry’s well-known rigidity. Namely, fans are living for a pop group actually being racially diverse as well as having two openly queer members (Raj and Skiendiel) among other divergences from the typical K-pop playbook. Bannerman and Raj, in particular, have been praised for respectively making necessary space for South Asian and Black women in the K-pop genre.
However, breaking the mould hasn’t come without its critiques and challenges. Bannerman’s speculated mistreatment has been the subject of conversation since before Katseye officially formed. During the years-long Hybe training program designed to replicate the musical, performance and dance schooling K-pop idols receive, Bannerman was scouted from social media, particularly as a strong candidate to be the “visual” of the group, a term in K-pop for the most model-like member of a group responsible for brand endorsements.
Despite being hand-picked for the program and Hybe executives repeatedly praising her natural “star quality,” unlike many of the other girls, Bannerman was portrayed as “unprofessional” on Netflix’s Pop Star Academy for not coming to practice, while other members who did not come to practice didn’t receive the same edit, as fans have pointed out.
“Being called lazy, especially as a Black girl, is not fair,” Bannerman told The Cut in a February interview. “Now I feel like I always need to put in extra work to prove something, even though I really don’t.”
Throughout Katseye’s rise to fame, fans have continued to point out instances in which they feel Manon was unfairly singled out, such as not being featured in the “Gabriela” music video, choreography that seemingly hides her during performance and not being visible in the Instagram post featuring the group’s Glossier billboard ad.
How has Manon responded to Katseye’s announcement of her “hiatus”?
In light of the hiatus announcement from Hybe and Bannerman, fans and even fellow pop stars have rushed online to figure out what is actually going on. Soon after the statements were posted on Friday, people online began posting screenshots of Bannerman liking posts that discussed how racism impacted several pop groups’ only Black members, such as this popular Instagram video by content creator Simone Umba. The star also seemed to have followed fellow Black female pop stars who have spoken about racism they faced in their respective girl groups, such as Fifth Harmony’s Normani and Little Mix’s Leigh Ann Pinnock.
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