On February 20, K-pop content channel ‘MU:PLY’ released an in-depth interview with Kang Daniel where he opened up about how he has been impacted by malicious comments in the past.

While speaking about his new song ‘PARANOIA’, Kang Daniel mentioned that he went through a difficult period of time in 2019, and wanted to express the feeling of himself breaking down through the song.

Among the difficulties he faced that year were a great number of malicious comments. He spoke about how these affected him:

“For celebrities, there are malicious comments... They make me ask myself, ‘Am I really like that? Am I? Well, that means, I should just die.’ I started thinking like that often. It built and built, and at some point I started to hate myself. I hated looking at myself. That’s what I wanted to cover in this song.”

Check out the rest of the interview with English subtitles here:

Kang Daniel recently discussed in ‘Radio Star’ that he had to take a hiatus due to depression and panic disorder and wrote ‘PARANOIA’ during that time.

According to Kang Daniel, being able to tell his story through this song has allowed him to regain confidence. He mentioned in a press conference before the song’s release:

“I think I was able to feel that my inner strength grew. It's like I surpassed my past self. My perspective became wider, and I am able to see things around me that I wasn't able to see before.”

In other news, Kang Daniel released a special performance music video and dance practice, and is actively promoting ‘PARANOIA’ on music shows.