IU Deleted Her Ex's Song From Instagram After Fans Noticed the Awkward Timing

IU posted a casual photo dump on her personal Instagram on the 6th, and the pictures weren't the story. The background music was: the track playing under her caption "living hard" was Byeol-il Eomsi Sanda ("Just Living") by Jang Kiha and the Faces, the band fronted by her ex-boyfriend.

The song has since been removed from the post. The deletion was quiet, no statement attached, but fans clocked it fast and the move is being read as IU walking back the choice after the backlash.

The post itself was low-key: candid photos of IU lying in bed, behind-the-scenes shots from a set, a meal, a selfie in a car. Captions like "hey, long time no see" and "a very belated birthday table." Nothing that would normally generate discourse. But the BGM selection landed differently given where things stand.

IU and Jang Kiha dated publicly from 2015 to 2017, with an 11-year age gap that tabloids never stopped mentioning. They split eight years ago. Jang Kiha has since confirmed he is now dating actress Yoon Ga-i, who is 18 years his junior. IU, meanwhile, was reported last month to have ended her four-year relationship with actor Lee Jong-suk.

That convergence is what made this particular song choice land weird. Some fans were blunt about it: "She knows he's in a relationship right now," "why that song specifically," and "his current girlfriend must feel some kind of way" were recurring reactions online. The criticism wasn't that IU did anything explicitly wrong, it was more a question of reading the room.

The counter-argument is equally straightforward. Jang Kiha and the Faces made genuinely well-regarded music, the breakup was years ago, and nobody owes their ex a permanent moratorium on their catalog. "A song is just a song," "are we really saying you can't listen to your ex's music ever again," and "this is a massive overreach" were just as common in the replies.

Only IU knows what she meant by the pick. But the timing, her split news, Jang Kiha's new relationship confirmation, and this song surfacing in the same news cycle, gave the whole thing an energy it probably didn't need.

IU has larger things on her plate. She recently announced she is cancelling a planned September stadium concert at Goyang and postponing her sixth full-length album after her patulous Eustachian tube condition worsened. In a post to her own account, she wrote that she may have pushed herself too hard over the past few years chasing work without thinking about her health. The music stuff will keep; she's focused on recovering first.