The actor previously gifted the instrument to the singer for borrowing his look from the “Permission to Dance” music video.
A BTS cover of “I’m Just Ken” is in order once the K-pop group returns from hiatus.
Jimin has officially received Ryan Gosling’s Barbie guitar. In a recent video message recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, the actor gifted the BTS singer and dancer Ken’s guitar after coming to the realization that his black western outfit in the film closely resembles a set worn by Jimin in the boy band’s 2021 “Permission to Dance” music video. The instrument has made its way to Jimin, who thanked the star in a video shared on Instagram.
“Hi Ryan and hi Ken, it’s Jimin. Congrats on your big release,” he began the message. “I could see that you look great in my outfit. Thank you for this guitar. I really love it and I look forward to watching Barbie. Go, Barbie!”
In the original video, Gosling acknowledged that Jimin wore the western ensemble first and “definitely wore it best” before offering the guitar, citing Ken code. “There’s an unspoken Ken code that if you bite another Ken’s style, you have to give them your most prized possession,” Gosling said. “So, I hope you’ll accept Ken’s guitar as my humble offering. Besides, Ken doesn’t really play anyways so it’ll be much better in your hands.”
Jimin is a well-documented fan of the actor, having previously sharing that he’s watched Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ 2004 romance film The Notebook many times.
In Barbie, Gosling (plus various other versions of Ken played by Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Scott Evans) performs a cover of Matchbox Twenty’s “Push” with the stylish guitar emblazoned with Ken’s name and a horse graphic. The moment marks the first of two big musical numbers from Gosling — Ken also performs an ’80s rock ballad to the original song “I’m Just Ken,” which features rockers Slash and Wolfgang Van Halen on the guitars and Josh Freese on the drums.
During EW’s Around the Table (above, also recorded prior to the actors’ strike), Gosling said he tapped into his child actor past to play the musical character. “At a certain point I thought I had left that kid behind, and I realized that I needed his help to make this movie,” Gosling, a former Mouseketeer on The All New Mickey Mouse Club in the ’90s, said. “So I had to go back and make peace with him and ask for his help. It was good for me.”
Barbie is in theaters now.
