SEOUL. Apr 27 — The artistic director behind the lady band NewJeans has discovered online fame after a tearful, profanity-laced information convention through which she slammed a few of K-pop’s strongest executives as “middle-aged jerks”.
HYBE, the South Korean company behind K-pop sensation BTS, filed a authorized grievance on Thursday towards Min Hee-jin, the top of its powerhouse subsidiary label ADOR, for breach of belief in enterprise.
That adopted an announcement three days earlier that it had launched an audit of ADOR and demanded that Min resign. HYBE’s share worth fell near 10 p.c after the audit was introduced and closed yesterday down 4.95 per cent.
Min, 44, hit again in a information convention on Thursday that drew empathy online from younger working women and men who in contrast her story with their very own experiences with unreasonable and jealous bosses who both took credit score for his or her work or didn’t acknowledge it pretty.
Others, nonetheless, mentioned she had acted inappropriately and unprofessionally by sometimes lapsing into profanity.
She denied HYBE’s accusations and claimed it was attempting to dismiss her unfairly after she accused one other of its subsidiaries, BELIFT LAB, of imitating NewJeans with a lady group of its personal known as ILLIT.
Min, talking off the cuff and infrequently breaking down in tears, candidly shared her frustrations for greater than two hours.
She referred to HYBE’s leaders, together with chairman Bang Si-hyuk, the person behind BTS, as “gaejeossi”, which interprets roughly to a “middle-aged or previous male jerk”.
“I really feel betrayed by HYBE… they used me till I used to be not of use to them,” she mentioned.
Min Hee-jin, famed superproducer and chief of ADOR, a powerhouse subsidiary of HYBE, speaks throughout a press convention in Seoul on April 25, 2024. — eNM pic
‘Undermined’
The live-streamed occasion, throughout which even her attorneys appeared embarrassed, had thousands and thousands of views and drew an explosive public response.
One parody YouTube video seen by 2.5 million viewers mixed a clip of Min talking passionately with hip-hop music. The t-shirt and baseball cap she was carrying bought out on a number of online platforms and lots of others mentioned that they had suffered related experiences.
“Women who’ve actually labored (exhausting) and skilled being undermined by males, together with the soiled facet of workplace politics, might by no means converse unwell of Min Hee-jin,” a South Korean lady mentioned on social media platform X.
But Lee Moon-won, a tradition critic who watched the information convention, mentioned Min sidestepped the actual allegations towards her.
“No determine as influential as Min within the leisure industry has ever used curse phrases throughout an official press convention, individuals have actually by no means seen something prefer it, so this clearly has attracted monumental consideration,” he advised eNM.
File picture of members of South Korean K-pop group NewJeans posing on the blue carpet at Seoul Fashion Week at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul on March 15, 2023. — eNM pic
‘Incompetence and vulgarity’
Min, who joined the industry within the early 2000s, is extensively thought to be one of the profitable producers in K-pop, having labored with stars akin to Girls’ Generation, EXO and SHINee.
NewJeans, a K-pop phenomenon that made its debut in 2022 and whose members are all beneath 20, is amongst HYBE’s most profitable K-pop teams together with BTS.
As one among few profitable ladies producers within the industry, Min has been recognised for her arresting visible imagery on quite a few K-pop hits, together with Girls’ Generation’s “Gee” and EXO’s “Growl”.
NewJeans has topped international charts, together with the Billboard 200, and broke the Guinness World Record final yr for “Fastest K-pop act to achieve 1 billion streams on Spotify”.
Min mentioned HYBE chairman Bang by no means congratulated her on NewJeans’ debut and that the dad or mum firm had given promotional precedence to a different of its K-pop teams, Le Sserafim.
HYBE rejected Min’s accusations and urged her once more to resign and cease discussing NewJeans.
Some consultants criticised each Min and HYBE over a scandal that has gripped a lot of South Korea.
K-pop columnist Isak Choi mentioned these concerned confirmed “incompetence and vulgarity by not hesitating to publicly show infighting”.
Just as a result of Min criticised HYBE’s management, “it doesn’t imply she is free from the rotten problems with this industry”, Choi wrote on X.
“She can not grow to be the underdog just because she is combating with the administration, particularly after having gained astronomical advantages from inside it.” — eNM
