Rapper Dishes on ‘Very Difficult’ Breakup From Pop Star Fiancée

South Korean musician DAWN spoke about his recent breakup with K-pop star HyunA. DAWN and HyunA announced in now-deleted Instagram posts last December that they had split after six years together.  Initially dating in 2016, the duo, who was signed to CUBE Entertainment then, officially announced their relationship in 2018. In the wake of the breakup, the rapper has revealed that it was initially “very difficult to deal with.” He told Rolling Stone: “I couldn’t get used to it. It was an extremely difficult time. “

“But what I realized in that process was that I wasn’t in love with HyunA’s looks or social status – I was genuinely in love with her soul. I was able to overcome that pain by realizing that I want her to be even happier, even when she is not beside me – even more happy than when we were together – because I really love her,” DAWN said, adding that his ex’s happiness is his “number-one priority.”

Taking many walks, once up to “four hours,” was one of the ways the musician dealt with the breakup, saying: “I wanted to feel like I could just crash and fall asleep because I was so exhausted. So I kept myself busy.” Several months before the pair split up, both artists departed PSY’s record label, P Nation, together, marking the end of the artists’ nearly four-year relationship with the agency after signing with the label in January 2019. After making their relationship public, the two sparked engagement rumors in February 2022 after posting photos of a ring on Instagram, with captions indicating that the proposal had taken place. DAWN captioned their post of the ring with an all-caps, “MARRY ME,” which was later reposted by HyunA with her own caption accepting the proposal. “Of course, it’s a yes,” the caption read. 

At the time of the original announcement, the pair denied being in a relationship. Yet, shortly afterward, Yonhap News reported that HyunA and DAWN had confessed to dating for two years. Their source stated that they wanted to publicly acknowledge their relationship so that they could confidently stand in front of their fans. DAWN and HyunA explained their decision to recognize the romance, saying, “While we knew that [dating publicly] would cause us to be linked in some way, both of us felt that it would be hard to meet our fans’ eyes [while performing] on stage. We wanted to honestly tell our fans and show ourselves confidently having fun performing.”