Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Despite their legal battles with SPIRE Entertainment resulting in resounding victories thus far, OMEGA X still unfortunately have to deal with the headache of managing multiple lawsuits against their former company.
The latest from their case is allegations made by former SPIRE CEO Kang Seong Hee. Despite being accused of sexual assault herself, she claims it was actually her who was sexually assaulted by an OMEGA X member. SPIRE first announced that they would hold a press conference for the allegations, explaining that they had video evidence.
“Kang, despite being the victim, has been reluctant to press charges or disclose evidence because she did not want to be the one making the young Omega X member into a sex offender,” read the agency’s press release.
“But the assumptions toward Kang have escalated to a point where it cannot be overlooked anymore, so she decided to reveal the surveillance camera footage.”
Later on, at the press conference, they revealed footage that they allege shows member Hwichan touching the CEO’s body against her will.
The footage was allegedly lost until two weeks ago, but was recently restored and will be used as evidence to press charges against the Omega X member for sexual assault, Spire Entertainment said.
The alleged incident starts around 9:35 in the video below:
Current SPIRE CEO Hwang Seong Woo, the husband of the former CEO, explained the alleged circumstances of the video.
“I was out drinking with the members who were drafted into the military. At the time, Kang was working late in the office because of the group’s U.S. and Japan tours. When Kang realized we were drunk, she cleaned up after us. Hwichan then asked to speak with Kang separately. He told her he was heartbroken to have to go to the military when he prepared for his debut since Middle School. He asked Kang to help him push back his military service. Kang was consoling him and told him she would try to find a way.”
“Hwichan didn’t stop and used his strength to continue his molestation of Kang. Kang, who feared for her safety, calmly de-escalated the situation so as not to provoke him.”
The CEO says the company then had discussions about kicking Hwichan out and pressing charges, but instead would just stop his promotions after the tour. He says it was at that point that the OMEGA X members decided to collude to get out of their contracts.
Due to this incident, the 11 members realized that their future promotions were in jeopardy and started to make reasons (to leave the label). Not long after, they held a press conference claiming that they were physically and sexually abused.
Allegations of sexual assault are obviously serious, but it’s worth noting that the former CEO was also accused of sexual assault of the members four months ago, and court rulings have since acknowledged the members of OMEGA X were verbally abused and suffered from forced harassment at the hands of their former CEO, which is why they were granted a contract injunction.
Additionally, and perhaps most relevantly to these allegations by the CEO, it was revealed that she sent the members creepy and harassing texts while drunk that crossed way over the line. That’s important to remember because IPQ (OMEGA X’s company) responded to the former CEO’s allegations by explaining that the video actually shows Hwichan being coerced, as she was demanding affection.
“The footage of Hwichan’s forced molestation of CEO Kang Seong Hee is all false.”
“We have asked Spire Entertainment to release the entire video…CEO Kang Seong Hee’s demands for affection towards the members were continuous. As revealed a year ago, along with verbal abuse, physical violence, and harassment, there were clear instances of sexual misconduct.”
“The CCTV footage of Hwichan touching CEO Kang Seong Hee’s breasts is fabricated…The act was actually done under coercion because CEO Kang Seong Hee asked Hwichan to show her affection.”
“The statement in relevance does not simply come from the member[s] but we are preparing materials in order to support this. we have of course, transcripts of conversations where she continuously requested for shows of affection.”
Demands for affection were a constant in the aforementioned text messages to the members, and the video doesn’t appear to show Hwichan forcing the CEO to do anything, so their side is not hard to believe at all. Additionally, there’s the fact that she’s facing her own sexual assault/harassment allegations from the members, and that the power dynamic at the time was clearly in favor of her and her husband.
Again, I understand her allegation should be taken seriously given the gravity of the claim, but IPQ’s explanation is completely in character based on what we’ve seen from the former CEO over the past months.
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Meanwhile, on the legal side of things at least, there was another positive update today. IPQ says that the former CEO’s assault on member Jaehan was confirmed and she’s awaiting sentencing, and they also provide updates on the other lawsuits.
“We would like to inform you of an interim update on the cases we’re currently working on.
On October 22, 2022, we filed a lawsuit against Kang Sung-hee, the former CEO of SPIRE Entertainment, for assaulting OMEGA X member Jae-han in the hallway in front of the elevator on the first floor of a hotel in Los Angeles. After a long investigation, the court confirmed the assault on March 12, 2024,
and she is going to receive sentencing.
The complaint of business interference that was filed together with the assault case was decided to be dismissed due to the settlement of the main lawsuit for termination of the exclusive contract,
but we are still investigating Kang Sung-hee for sexual misconduct where she abused her power; defamation and spreading falsehoods; and business interference.
In addition, we are also pursuing an original lawsuit related to the termination of the exclusive contract, and we will keep you informed of further investigations.”
Not sure if there’s going to be further legal action based on the SPIRE press conference and allegations made today, but I assume there will be, so further updates could come later if anything else is revealed.
