Why Kwon Eunbi Skipped Waterbomb 2026 After Building Her Whole Image There

Kwon Eunbi has been candid about the complicated feelings sitting behind one of her biggest moments. On a Chuseok special episode of the YouTube variety program Club Song Sound (클럽곡소리), uploaded on the 25th, she reflected on her song "Underwater" with a honesty that fans found quietly striking: the track didn't land when it first came out, and the fact that it eventually took off through Waterbomb virality rather than on its own merits still stings a little.

"When it was first released, it didn't do well," she said. "Because it became a song that succeeded through the Waterbomb viral moment, there was a sense of regret."

The image question she kept coming back to

That regret runs deeper than chart performance. Kwon Eunbi described wrestling with the same question every time a new album came around: does she need that kind of performance again to get attention? It's the kind of creative tension that doesn't resolve easily, especially when one spectacular moment defines how the public sees you.

"I wanted to sing songs that felt like me," she said. With her new digital single "DEJAVU," released on the 3rd after a gap of one year and four months, she says the goal was to show a more natural side of herself rather than leaning back into a purely sexy image.

The episode also gave her room to talk about where the drive to perform came from in the first place. She recalled doing a talent show during an elementary school field trip and feeling a rush from the crowd's reaction. Her parents, though, wanted her to pursue a more stable career. What got her through was her older brother, just one year her senior, who supported her ambitions at an age when most kids weren't thinking about any of that. She credited him with real warmth.

Why she sat out Waterbomb this year

For someone who earned the nickname "Waterbomb Goddess" after her appearances at the summer festival following her 2018 debut with IZ*ONE, skipping the 2026 event was a notable absence. Kwon Eunbi addressed it directly on a separate broadcast: she had recently changed agencies, and with her most important album release in the picture, the timing simply didn't line up. She turned down the invitation rather than split her focus.

Given everything she shared on Club Song Sound, that decision reads as consistent with where she seems to be creatively. The Waterbomb persona opened doors, but "DEJAVU" sounds like her attempt to walk through a different one.