Choi Yena raised brows for her new song "Hate Rodrigo" MV concept and lyrics, which seems to snipe at the international singer. Jigumis immediately jumped to the former IZ*ONE member's defense and clarified the misunderstanding.

Jealous of Olivia? Choi Yena Explains Meaning of 'Hate Rodrigo'

On July 27, YENA (Choi Yena) finally made her comeback with her second single album, "HATE XX," featuring the title track, "Hate Rodrigo." The soloist held a comeback showcase for the new release, hosted Jaejae, and talked about the album.

In particular, what caught the attention of K-pop fans and media was Yena's explanation about the controversial title track that mentioned the international pop star Olivia Rodrigo, who produced mega-hits "good 4 u," "dejavu," "traitor," and more.

During the showcase, Yena explained:

"'Hate Rodrigo' is a song that expresses the very cute jealousy that I feel for my wannabe (star), the object of my admiration, and the object I respect, with my own charm, without hating it. It features interesting lyrics and rocking melodies. It's really, really special because my best friend, (G)I-DLE Yuqi was featured in the song with me."

She continued to clarify the word "Hate" in the title track.

"'Hate Rodrigo' is a song that cutely and honestly expresses various emotions of longing for the object she admires and is jealous of.

So I decided that I will use irony to show my longing and affection for that person with sincere lyrics and performances."

ALSO READ: Is Choi Yena 'Dissing' Olivia Rodrigo in New Song? Track's Lyrics, MV Explained

With this, Yena explained that rather than "hate," she was actually paying homage and expressing her love to Olivia Rodrigo, who is the center of her cute jealousy.

Jigumis Defend Choi Yena from Criticism

Despite her explanation, the song following its release still didn't sit well with numerous music fans. K-Netz even wrote an article, titled, "It's really embarrassing," which has over 170k views as of writing.

Several showed their skepticism if Yena is only "using" the pop star to create noise marketing, and pointed out how Olivia was poorly given the honor in the song.

• "I think homage itself doesn't matter. But I don't understand why her role model is Olivia Rodrigo. Do you need to have something similar to do marketing for 'Me Too' marketing?
• "Rodrigo is a singer-songwriter and a musician who writes and composes herself, but she can't even write songs and even debuted before Rodrigo, so she's older and she's a senior; I don't know why she's imitating the top foreign singer-songwriter star. The resolution is completely different."

• "Why are you doing this? It's the worst concept."
• "She doesn't have the charm of herself, so she paid homage to her junior singer... I'm so proud of her (sarcasm)."
• "The real shame is Rodrigo is a rising rookie and even younger lol Don't you know what HATE means."

Following this negative feedback, Jigumis (Yena's fandom) immediately defended the idol and explained the concept comprehensively.

• "This... If you watch the music video, it's just about Rodrigo being too pretty! It's a fan girl concept that put up Rodrigo's poster in the room, and Rodrigo is a hot pop star who is getting a lot of attention as #1 on Billboard, so Yena thinks she looks good enough and she thinks she can be her role model.
• "If Yena is imitating Rodrigo, she would have rather released it with the concept of being broken up like Rodrigo's representative songs, but Yena doesn't have any of that content.
• "It just reveals it's an homage right away, and the content is super simple and shouts out that (Olivia) is so good. Yena likes her so much, so I hope you don't hate it too much."

Meanwhile, stream YENA's "Hate Rodrigo" official MV here!

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Written by Eunice Dawson.