His comment pointing out that not many celebrities had remained until the end of the show with MONSTA X the only idols left at their seats has brought about much criticism from netizens who agreed with Taeyang and commented that it was extremely rude for said idols to have left early with much of these geared towards SM Entertainment artists.
However, as some pointed out, the majority of the artists, including iKON, who had left the ceremony early had either been backstage for an interview with Mnet (EXO) or had to catch a flight back to South Korea (or to Prague in the case of SHINee and Red Velvet for the Czech Hallyu Wave Concert) to carry out their other schedules.