BTS has formally withdrawn from consideration for the 69th Annual Grammy Awards, the eligibility cycle tied to music released in the qualifying window leading into early 2027, according to a Yahoo report. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. has issued a public response, the most senior acknowledgment yet of a withdrawal that reshapes the international pop field.

What did the Recording Academy CEO say?

Mason addressed the BTS decision publicly, framing the exit against the Academy's ongoing push to grow global membership and submissions. The Academy has spent the last three cycles expanding its international voting rolls, and BTS-related activity has been a measurable driver of engagement from South Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

The full text of Mason's response circulated via the Academy's communications channels. Without specific quoted language available at press time, his remarks are positioned as a statement of respect for the group's decision rather than a challenge to it.

Why are BTS off the 2027 ballot?

The group has been off the road since 2022 as each member completed South Korean military service. Discharge dates across the seven members:

• Jin — June 2024
• J-Hope — October 2024
• RM, SUGA, Jimin, V, Jung Kook — scheduled through 2025

Solo releases have dominated each member's output during the service window. The decision to forgo a group submission for the 2027 cycle removes one of the most-streamed catalog acts in Academy voting history from the slate.

What is BTS's Grammy history?

BTS first submitted "Dynamite" for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards (2021). The group's nomination record stands at four nods without a win:

• 64th Awards (2022) — Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, "Butter"
• 65th Awards (2023) — Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, "My Universe" with Coldplay; also nominated for Album of the Year as featured artists on Coldplay's Music of the Spheres
• Additional nominations followed in subsequent cycles

How does this change the 2027 race?

BTS's exit clears the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category, where the group has been a recurring finalist. Coldplay remains active with collaborative releases, and K-pop nominees including Stray Kids and aespa — both past nominees — gain room in a less crowded field.

The shift also touches the global field categories. Rule changes in recent cycles allow non-English-language recordings to compete on equal footing in the general field, a framework BTS helped popularize as a submission case study.

Will the members submit solo material?

HYBE has not confirmed whether RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V, or Jung Kook will file individual entries for the 69th cycle. Individual submissions would count as solo artist entries, not group entries, and would not carry the BTS brand into the voting database.

Eligibility windows for the 69th Awards typically close in mid-2025, with nominations announced in late 2026. The Academy has not yet published the official 2027 eligibility dates.

What does this mean for the international push?

The withdrawal lands at a sensitive moment for the Academy's international expansion. The Recording Academy opened an active membership push across Asia and Latin America in 2024, citing BTS and BLACKPINK engagement as benchmarks. Losing the group's name from the 2027 ballot is a public-relations setback, not a structural one, but it sharpens the question of how the institution retains Asian-Pacific participation between headline submissions.

Mason's response is the first formal signal from the Academy that it intends to treat the exit as a pause, not a parting.