After spending eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 18 atop the Billboard Global 200, “Golden” from Netflix’s hit KPop Demon Hunters was a shoo-in for a best original song Oscar nod this year — but EJAE still couldn’t believe it when she saw her name among the nominees.
The singer-songwriter tells Billboard just hours after the 2026 nominations went live on Thursday morning (Jan. 22), that she’s still unable to “digest” the success “Golden” has earned in general, much less the Oscar nod it picked up. “I screamed way too loud,” EJAE, who cowrote the track and performed it as one-third of the singing voices behind HUNTR/X alongside REI AMI and Audrey Nuna, says of her immediate reaction to the news. “It was wild.”
The Korean-American artist was in her New York City living room with her fiancé while FaceTiming “Golden” cowriter Mark Sonnenblick when they all found out that their chart-topping composition had been nominated, alongside tracks from Sinners, Train Dreams, Diane Warren: Relentless and Viva Verdi! (IDO and TEDDY also helped write the KPop Demon Hunters hit.) Directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans were both in their beds when they saw at 5:30 a.m. Los Angeles time that they’d been nominated in the song category as well as for best animated film, with the latter telling Billboard that he had a similar reaction to EJAE.
“I let out a noise, so my son came in to see what was wrong,” Appelhans recalls with a laugh. “And I tried to explain to him what the Oscars were, and he didn’t totally get it, but he’s obsessed with trophies, so he was just like, ‘Daddy, do you get a trophy?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ But now I feel bad if I don’t.”
Based on the success of Kpop Demon Hunters so far this award season, it’s not a bad bet that Appelhans’ son will get to play with a priceless Oscars statuette yet. Earlier in January, the animated musical won the Golden Globes for best animated picture and original song for “Golden,” which will also compete for song of the year, best pop duo/group performance and best song written for visual media at the Grammys in February.
Even so, EJAE — who spoke about how long she spent working to earn recognition in the music industry in her Globes speech — says she still sometimes struggles to feel like she’s “made it.” After training as a K-pop idol for a decade with SM Entertainment before being dropped in 2015, the performer switched focus to working behind the scenes as a songwriter, wanting someday “to have a Hot 100 hit.”
“To have both dreams kind of come true in a [roundabout] way is very weird and serendipitous, to be honest,” she reflects. “As a kid, you know, growing up in New Jersey, I was kind of made fun of [for liking K-pop]. It was kind of a niche thing that only me and my girlfriends who were Korean would understand. It’s incredible … to see it just growing more and more and being part of a film that’s like really showcasing it in the most authentic way.”
Both EJAE and Kang agree that it’s been meaningful to assist in K-pop’s mainstream evolution as lifelong fans of the genre, especially as real-life K-pop idols give them flowers for “opening up new doors,” to quote SEVENTEEN’s JOSHUA at the Globes. “That was the dream from the beginning with this movie was just, ‘How do we take all of [K-culture] and encompass it in a film?’” Kang says. “Now Koreans can look at it and be like, ‘This is something that encapsulates our culture,’ and they can celebrate it.”
Appelhans notes, “My wife is Korean, and her mom went to the same BTS concert at the Rose Bowl [in 2019] that Maggie did, and they both described this moment of all these people in L.A. of all ethnicities singing the lyrics … They were proving to everyone that K-pop transcends borders, and so it gave us a lot of confidence in our concept, in our film.”
“It’s beautiful to see kids from all different races in America, all over the country dressed up as Korean women for Halloween,” EJAE adds of young fans emulating HUNTR/X. “They’re not princesses, they’re these bada– women, you know? Seeing that Korean braid that inspired the braid of [my character] Rumi everywhere in the streets of New York and people singing Korean lyrics all over the world is just such a beautiful dream.”
The trio played coy about what HUNTR/X’s musical direction will be in the much-rumored but still-unannounced KPop Demon Hunters sequel — “TBD,” Kang and EJAE both say simply — but wherever the franchise takes them next, all three creatives say they don’t see their accolades as adding any “pressure” to top themselves. If anything, EJAE says that, as a songwriter, the success of “Golden” has only validated to her that she should keep doing exactly what she’s always been doing.
“I’m my worst critic,” she shares. “So I already have such high standards. Continuing to grow as a writer has always been my mindset … What’s most different 1769110573 is being Korean-American, and then being a songwriter, I don’t see many Korean-American women in the industry, so my driving force [has become] to open doors for that.”
The 2026 Oscars will air live on ABC and stream on Hulu on Sunday, March 15.
