EJAE has spoken openly about the mental health crash she suffered when her childhood plan to become a K\u2011pop teen idol suddenly disappeared.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old songwriter and singing voice behind Rumi in the 2025 blockbuster animation KPop Demon Hunters shared how rejection hit her hard after spending her entire youth preparing for a debut that never came.<\/p>\n
She told The New York Times: \u201cDepression was a thing.”<\/p>\n
EJAE said she had been accepted into a major Korean label at just 11 and believed her future was set.<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cI had a whole future set out for me. I was like, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to be a K\u2011pop idol, huge superstar by like 18.'”<\/p>\n
But by 22, she was told she was already past the industry\u2019s cut\u2011off.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThat\u2019s actually considered like the \u2018Grandma Age\u2019 is what they call it.”<\/p>\n
EJAE said she only began to recover when she \u201caccidentally\u201d found her way into songwriting \u2014 a shift she now credits with changing the course of her life.<\/p>\n
She has penned tracks for major K-pop acts including Red Velvet, aespa, TWICE and LE SSERAFIM.<\/p>\n
EJAE also shared that the pressure to succeed had been drilled into her from an early age.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cMy grandpa was a huge figure in the movie industry of Korea. He would always tell me you have to work hard to be successful.”<\/p>\n
She also grew up studying Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s early training videos, pushing herself through \u201cseven, eight hours of dancing and singing every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the work, she faced constant rejection.<\/p>\n
She said: “I went through so many rejections. I\u2019m like, what am I doing wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her breakthrough moment came when she was chosen to record Oscar-winning KPop Demon Hunters track Golden.<\/p>\n
EJAE said the shock was overwhelming: \u201cI heard that before you die, you have flashback for three seconds of your whole life. I felt like I had that moment walking down that aisle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Performing the song at the BRITs helped her confront her stage fright.<\/p>\n
She recalled hearing a young fan shout, \u201cRumi, you got this,\u201d which gave her the push she needed.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI sang so well that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe love from the fans was just why I feel confident about my singing voice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EJAE has spoken openly about the mental health crash she suffered when her childhood plan to become a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[911,195,912,3575],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-ejae","tag-k-pop","tag-kpop-demon-hunters","tag-singing-voice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}