(G)I-DLE Drops “G” After Re-Signing: “We Always Said We’d Remove It If We Became Successful”
On May 12, members Miyeon, Minnie, Soyeon, Yuqi and Shuhua appeared on the YouTube channel “Channel 15ya” with PD Na Young-seok, sharing updates about their upcoming 8th mini album “We are” and interacting with fans.
During the livestream, the group and Na Young-seok watched the special video “for G”, which symbolically marked the farewell to the “(G)” in their name. Soyeon explained, “We held a funeral for ‘G’. Starting with this album, we will promote not as (G)I-DLE, but simply as ‘I-DLE’.”
The members added, “We’ve always said that once the team became successful, we’d drop the ‘(G)’. With the contract renewals, we also carried out a rebranding.”
They also shared behind-the-scenes stories about their pre-release track “Girlfriend”. Soyeon, who produced the song, said, “‘Girlfriend’ was actually made a long time ago, and only now has it finally come out. I’m very attached to it. I wrote it with the thought, ‘We’re NEVERLAND’s friends'”, referencing their fandom.
After watching the “Girlfriend” music video, Na Young-seok praised the group, “From ‘TOMBOY’ to ‘Nxde’ to ‘Fate’, every hit song has been amazing. I think I-DLE is a group whose music you can trust to be great.”
As the livestream wrapped, the members shared their thoughts, “It was really fun getting to communicate directly with our fans today. We hope you’ll love and support our 8th mini album ‘We are’, coming out on May 19.”
The “Girlfriend” music video, released on May 9, topped QQ Music’s overall and Korea charts, and ranked No.1 on YouTube Korea’s daily trending music videos and No.9 globally—further proving I-DLE’s global popularity.
