How ‘Biggest Fan’ and “I-WILL” Made IRENE a Top-Selling Soloist

At 35, the leader of Red Velvet has never been more popular or successful. Her sold-out, two-night show in Seoul over the weekend proves why.

IRENE performing in Seoul; SM ENTERTAINMENT

In April, Red Velvet’s leader IRENE won her first Music Bank trophy for her single “Biggest Fan.” In the fancam posted by Music Bank, her fans, Reveluvs, erupted into shrieks before she realized she’d won. The announcement surprised IRENE—she was staring into space until her name was called, before she was startled by confetti and flowers. She had just beaten BTS, the world’s biggest boy band, who placed second for “Swim”, leaving both her and her fans equally stunned and emotional.

IRENE’s win quickly went viral on X, where a fan account’s repost of the moment received over 167,000 likes. The win rallied nearly the entire K-pop fan community around IRENE: How did she, many wondered, beat BTS? But her win was well-earned. While many senior idols promote for less than two weeks, IRENE diligently appeared on music shows, held fansigns to boost sales, and communicated frequently with fans on Bubble, an idol messaging app. Her dedication made her the top-selling female vocalist so far in 2026, with over 214,000 copies of the album sold in the first week.

Last weekend, IRENE notched another achievement under her belt by playing two sold-out shows at Jangchung Gymnasium in Seoul. The concerts kicked off “I-WILL”, her first solo tour, which will travel across Asia this summer. The tour has sold as well as the album: She’s sold out multiple dates, with one stop drawing over 500,000 fans to the online queue when tickets went on sale.

IRENE has showcased “i-WILL” around self-actualization and determination. “The one who loves you most,” she told fans in a recent vlog, “is yourself.” She was talking about the meaning of “Love Can Make a Way”, her favorite B-side on Biggest Fan, but I see the imprint of this message throughout the show, which is built around a VCR of IRENE’s mascot, a cute bunny, on a journey to find others like her on the moon.

SM ENTERTAINMENT

The moon, IRENE intoned, can be as mysterious as the artist onstage. In the twelve years since her debut, IRENE is a highly guarded woman, even when, at times, we’ve felt we can understand her. When she revealed that she had read Kim Jiyong, Born 1982, a feminist cult classic in Korea, she received enormous backlash. But fans, especially women, could see themselves in her as perhaps a woman uninterested in conforming to society’s expectations for women. Red Velvet, too, eventually became a symbol of complicated, messy women with hits like “Psycho” and “Bad Boy”.  

At 35, IRENE is not married and has no children, a combination that seems both radical and common among millennial women. She is, instead, as she’s said in vlogs and Bubble messages, focused on her work and her own inner growth. “You always have to take care of yourself,” she said in the same vlog. No one else, she explains, is going to do it for you.

What makes IRENE such a dynamic performer, then, is that she is a master chameleon. Onstage at “I-WILL”,  IRENE could play a familiar role as an ice queen, such as her moody performance of “Black Halo”. But like the best idols, she is an actress who can shift into any character. And Biggest Fan is, perhaps, the first time we’ve seen IRENE actually get to have fun on stage, performing the role of a diva with a wink and a hair toss.

For the opening, she appeared in a frilly, tan corset dress, surrounded by dancers in all-black. She looked elegant, like a ballerina cloathed in darkness. “I feel a breath different from yesterday,” she sighs in the chorus of “Best Believe”. Then admits, “I’ll be fine [in] this moment where anything’s possible.” Later, as in “I Don’t Wanna Get Up”, she played the role of a coquettish showgirl who moves at her own pace. Throughout the set’s entire 130 minutes, IRENE’s energy never flagged, and only after heavily choreographed numbers did she seem winded.

IRENE is Red Velvet’s lead rapper, but her style, as in “Biggest Fan”, is more breathy than punchy, more flirtatious than aggressive. “I’m your biggest fan,” she coos in the chorus, “Just say it! Say you love me, babe!” It’s a song built for fan chants and fan service, something she frequently encouraged when she performed it on the second night.

And it’s this relationship, with her fans, that has bolstered her overwhelming success. While boy groups are still the most profitable model in K-pop, women like IRENE or TAEYEON, the leader of Girls’ Generation, are proving that a woman’s career does not end when they turn 30. If anything, they are hitting their biggest numbers yet.

In her closing speech, IRENE acknowledged the symbiotic relationship she shares with her fans. “I read each Bubble message one by one, you know?” she said. When she replies late, she explained, it’s typically because she’s been catching up on the fan messages. “I’m so grateful for feelings like this”, she said, because it reminds her that “this is what it means to really support and think of someone”.

The following day, on Bubble, IRENE returned and mused on the show's themes. “At first, I appeared on a crescent moon,” she wrote, referencing her entrance on the prop as she sang “Like a Flower”. But, she added, “with all of you cheering for me and calling my name in the concert, I finished with a full moon behind me.”