MAMAMOO's Wheein Tearfully Reflects on Group's Prime During Weverse Live

MAMAMOO member Wheein grew emotional while looking back on the group's peak years, telling fans she now misses a period she once found overwhelming.

On Aug. 31, Wheein went live on the fan platform Weverse and opened up about the toll of the group's busiest period. "If I talk about this, I think I'll cry again," she said before sharing the story. She warned that MooMoos, the group's fandom, might find it hard to hear.

Wheein said she once confided in comedian Kim Shin-young during that stretch, telling her, "I want to stop" and "It's too hard." She clarified that she did not actually want to quit. "Do you know what it's like when you love something so much that you end up saying you don't want to do it? I love this job so much and I want to keep doing it for a long time, but it was so hard that those words came out."

She said Kim Shin-young told her at the time, "Of course I understand you're struggling. Even if you feel like you want to quit right now, a day will come when you miss this. You really will miss it."

Back then, Wheein said, she could not accept the advice. "I wasn't in a place where I could understand it," she said. "When she'd say things like that, I'd get a little sarcastic and go, 'No, I don't think so,' half joking and half serious."

Now, she said, the words have caught up with her. "I feel like I really get what she meant," Wheein said, holding back tears. "I'd actually forgotten about it. But when I look at myself over the past few years, I think I've been living with exactly the kind of feelings she described. I felt it a lot again while putting out an album with the MAMAMOO members, promoting, and doing concerts."

She told fans directly that she often thinks about the group's prime. "There was a time when MAMAMOO was really at our peak, right?" she said. "I think about going back to that time a lot."

Wheein admitted she had not always felt that way. "To be honest, back then it was so hard that there were moments I hated it," she said. "You need rest to really feel how precious the moments in between are. When work is coming at you nonstop, a lot of the time you don't even realize what you're gaining. You don't have room to think about it, and it's exhausting. Looking back now, it was hard, but it was really fun too."

She said she is not sure she could do it all over again. "If someone told me to go back to that time now, I'm not sure I could push myself that hard," she said. "When I drink alone, I put on our old videos and end up crying by myself. I guess that's my version of being a sad drunk." As she spoke, she wiped away tears while reading fan comments from viewers who said they were crying with her.

The livestream came at the end of a heavy touring stretch. On Aug. 30 local time, MAMAMOO wrapped a U.S. tour that ran through seven cities, including New York, Chicago, Fort Worth, Cedar Park, Los Angeles, San Jose and Kent. The group heads to Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sept. 19 to meet fans there next.