It was all set to be a moment. Ishaan Khatter — the chiselled, chest-baring Bollywood boy who seems determined to be the poster child of Summer 2025 — had the global Miss World stage, a pumped-up crowd, and a playlist stacked with hits. And then, it happened: Mic Drop — and not in the way BTS intended.
Khatter, who took the stage at the 72nd edition of the Miss World pageant held at the HITEX Exhibition Centre in Hyderabad, delivered a series of high-octane performances. Some of them hit the right notes: his electric groove on Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk got the audience moving, and his nostalgic nod to Zingaat brought back his breakout Dhadak days. But then came the curveball — BTS’s explosive anthem Mic Drop. On paper, this could’ve been iconic. Ishaan grooving to one of BTS’s most hyped tracks? A perfect collision of East and East, Bollywood meeting K-pop. It had potential. Unfortunately, what fans got was… well, not that.
Netizens remain unimpressed
Instead of channelling BTS’s sharp, hard-hitting choreography that fans have memorised down to the millisecond, Khatter opted for a remix, not of the track, but of the moves. And not in a good way. The original intensity and precision of Mic Drop was replaced with…something.
Indian K-pop fans were left unimpressed. Social media lit up almost immediately with reactions that ranged from mild dismay to full-blown secondhand embarrassment. “Omg what am I seeing bro, nice try but need more practice 👏👏,” one user commented diplomatically. “Ye kya dekh liya mene inko nhi aata to kyu karte hai 😂,” said another, throwing in a familiar question most of us ask during talent show disasters.“Bol do ye edit h,” said one comment, desperate to believe it wasn’t real. “Choreography left the world🤸🏻♀️,” wrote a fan, mourning the absence of any recognisable moves. “I’m embarrassed on their behalf 😭,” summed up the general sentiment.
About Miss World 2025
Meanwhile, the Miss World event carried on in grandeur. With 108 global contestants competing, the night ultimately belonged to Opal Suchata Chuangsri from Thailand, who was crowned Miss World 2025 by Krystyna Pyszkova of the Czech Republic. In a moment that stood in sharp contrast to Khatter’s performance, Opal’s heartfelt answer during the Q&A round struck a universal chord.
When asked by judge Sonu Sood about the power of truth and personal responsibility in storytelling, Opal responded with grace: “Be the person that someone or the other will look up to. I always believe that no matter who you are and no matter how old you are, no matter what title you hold in your life, there is always a person next to you — whether it’s a child, whether it’s an adult, it could even be your own parents — that look up to you in a way. And the best way to lead people is to lead with their gracefulness in your actions. That is the best thing we can do to the people around us and in our world,” she said.
A mic drop, you could say — the kind that doesn’t need backup dancers. As for Ishaan, there’s no denying he has star power, but if he’s going to embrace the global stage, especially K-pop territory, he may want to take a few notes…or classes.
