BTS Suga talks about emotional struggle ahead of group U.S. debut: ‘I cried a lot’

BTS Suga reflected on the globally famous boy band’s debut performance in the United States while revealing he could not sleep at night ahead of their show.

The K-Pop star disclosed how making a mark globally had the septet anxious as they all were very nervous ahead of their 2017 American Music Awards performance.

During an appearance on Suchwita show, the singer said, “I’m the type that doesn’t get nervous much, but in 2017, we did our U.S. debut performance, and I experienced my hands shaking for the first time.”

South Korean soccer player Lee Kang-in also joined Suga during the interview as they discussed the pre-show jitters before large stadium games or shows.

Suga agreed with the athlete when he revealed he often feels sleepy before big matches, and said while referring to their U.S. debut, “The pressure that I needed to do well here made me not be able to sleep at night.”

“An athlete has to prove himself through his performance, while a singer does that on stage. For example, we received an award at this award show. We went to Billboard,” he recalled.

“When we first went up on the stage at the AMAs in 2017, since it was so big it wasn’t even a dream of mine. I never even thought of whether it’s possible or not.”

Suga continued, “After [the AMAs], I was really scared because I knew it was just the start. Since I knew this wasn’t a one-time thing, the pressure of what we need to do in order to create what results [we wanted] slowly crept up on me.”

“So after the AMAs, I cried a lot. [I wondered,] ‘Where do we go from here?’ Because no one could tell us what to do now … we worked like crazy. Even people around us worried that this might be a one-time thing. There was a lot of talk that there would be nothing afterwards.”