John Cena went on The Tonight Show to promote his new children’s book, Elbow Grease Fast Friends (out September 29), but he mostly ended up talking about his love for BTS. “When I started to look at BTS and listen to the music, I was originally drawn because there are rappers in that crew,†he explained. “And they use, in some of their intro tracks and bookend tracks, they use sick-ass boom-bap beats and they actually rap.†He wouldn’t be the first to fall hard for an RM verse. “So, I got interested in the music and then I got interested in what the music stood for,†he continued. “They advocate self-love, they advocate ‘Don’t be afraid of failure,’ they advocate ‘You are enough.’†Which, he adds, is vital for their teen fans. But as a 43-year-old ARMY himself, he has nothing but respect for stans of all ages. “On top of that, they’ve developed this global ARMY, this BTS ARMY, that is not just geeked-out fans,†he said, gushing about the ARMY’s million-dollar Black Lives Matter donation match, one of several philanthropic efforts fans have done in the band’s name. Cena had the honor of not only being the first in-person guest back at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, but also a guest during BTS’s weeklong takeover. They followed up Monday’s “IDOL†with a new performance of “Home†from their 2019 B-sides EP Map of the Soul: Persona. Soon, the entire cast of Fast 9 will be streaming BTS and we’ll know exactly who put them on.
