Filipina theater icon Lea Salonga revealed why BTS member V holds a special place in her heart as her bias.
During her appearance on K-ALL podcast hosted by Angel Polito, the Broadway icon opened about her admiration for the K-pop group and reflected on seeing the members grow from young performers into global superstars.
Lea found an especially interesting parallel between her own journey and V’s. Both had already reached major career milestones at just 17 — Lea by joining Miss Saigon, while V debuted with BTS.
“It is crazy,” she said. “Sometimes I can't help but make those comparisons, but the thing also that makes him my bias [is that] I think my personality is a little more like Jungkook, which is why he's not exactly my bias.”
For Lea, having someone as her “bias” goes beyond simply liking their personality or performance. She sees it as admiring qualities that she herself hopes to embody.
“But the bias is more like the guy you want to be and the guy whose qualities you will one day be able to embody, hopefully,” she explained.
“The thing about V, I think that worked to his advantage, is his unpredictability as well as his heart. [It is also] his integrity and his emotional honesty. It comes out in their music videos or in any project where he has to act because that is something you can't fake.”
READ: BTS V likes Lea Salonga's Instagram reel
She also pointed out how BTS’ seven-member dynamic may have helped V navigate the overwhelming journey that came with their success.
“As for how he was able to carry all of that, I think a lot of it has to do with being able to share the labor with six other people. In that case, he was lucky,” she said.
Her observation also brought her back to her own experience as a performer in Miss Saigon as Kim, where she was surrounded by fellow Filipino artists who were also adjusting to an unfamiliar environment abroad.
“I got to share the labor when I was in Miss Saigon with a lot of other Filipino actors and actresses that flew from the Philippines to be part of this massive endeavor in a country that we really didn't know, where we were strangers, where we had to deal with a cultural barrier and learning how to code-switch just to be able to be understood in a taxi cab, for example, and adapting to a country that just felt very foreign...a lifestyle that I don't think any of us was really really prepared for. I think it took a lot of adjustments for a lot of us."
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But if there is one thing Lea hopes BTS has been able to do throughout their extraordinary rise, it is to take a breath and enjoy the journey.
“I would say that for them, the minute the train left the station, it just left at full speed. I'm just hoping that along the way they've been able to stop not just so much to smell the roses but to recover,” she said.
Lea also said seeing BTS enjoy their current Arirang World Tour has also given her reassurance as a fan.
“Clearly, we're seeing them enjoying themselves on this current tour which makes me, as a fan, feel 'Oh good, they're okay'. I think it's something that one hopes for them that they're able to just enjoy this crazy ride because it is a crazy ride,” she added.
Interestingly, Lea recently experienced a small but surreal BTS moment of her own.
While attending BTS’ Arirang World Tour concert at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Lea filmed V performing “FYA.” In the clip, her BTS bias appeared to look directly toward her camera, giving the theater icon a particularly memorable fan moment.
Then came an unexpected bonus: V liked her Instagram reel.
With V himself showing some love to her post, the experience became an even more unforgettable chapter in Lea’s life as an ARMY.
And while the Broadway icon has watched BTS on their concerts, she has one very personal dream as a fan: to finally meet them and express what their music has meant to her.
“Probably, to be able to see them eye-to-eye and be able to say thank you, that would probably be the one thing I would dream about," she said as the podcast comes to its end. "To be able to say: 'You've been able to lift me out of a dark spot in my life... thank you for that and for all your music'”.