Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
While I took a (deserved) break from the HYBE/ADOR conflict, there thankfully wasn’t a ton of back-and-forth. However, what did happen was another public relations haymaker and a criminal complaint.
We’re definitely in the thick of it.
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Min Hee Jin released a statement in response to reports that she talked to Naver and Dunamu for the purpose of taking ADOR out of HYBE, and also addressed the released KakaoTalk chats about NewJeans and ADOR employees.
With regards to Naver and Dunamu, MHJ clarifies that the executives were friends of an acquaintance, they showed up at a dinner without her prior knowledge, and that it has no relation to investment. Following that dinner, an ADOR exec suggested Dunamu becoming an owner would be beneficial, and despite no convos about that with the companies themselves, she indeed thought about “escaping” from an “aggressor”. She compares these claims by HYBE to those regarding the previous Saudi fund ownership claims, where they are framing interactions into something more than they were. MHJ reiterates that there were no discussions of investment to take control of ADOR, and she also points out that as CEO there are no issues with seeking investment in the company.
Notably, she accuses others within HYBE of entertaining investors at room salons.
“Even if I had met with investors, what issue could there be with a CEO or Vice President of a company meeting an investor? Does HYBE scrutinize and interrogate Presidents of other labels if they also meet with investors? Were those who took investors and business partners to room salon and Tenpro also investigated?”
Regarding the KakaoTalk messages, she says anybody could sound as bad if HYBE cut and edited their messages. She explains that her and NewJeans have gone through many tough situations, and through those they’ve become stronger together. MHJ says the members comforted her the next morning after they were revealed, and that she’s being framed as a monster by people who don’t know her. She also says it’s hard to understand her if you splice convos, and only about five people have convos with her due to personal trauma.
MHJ volunteers that she doesn’t drink, smoke, or go clubbing, and once again points out the audit was illegal. She states that the mediaplay against her is unnecessary if they had clear evidence of a takeover attempt.
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HYBE responded by saying she’s making emotional appeals to the public while legal stuff is underway, pointing out that she choose to highlight specific artists herself. They reiterate their points about how she attempted management rights takeover, made disparaging remarks against employees/idols, and that the shaman involvement are all disqualifying, and state they haven’t manipulated or taken anything out of context, nor was it obtained illegally.
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Meanwhile, BELIFT LAB has filed a criminal complaint against Min Hee Jin for interference with business and defamation.
“We clearly state that the plagiarism allegations raised by Min Hee Jin against our artist ILLIT are not true. We have submitted evidence to the judicial authorities that can prove these allegations are false, and even if this may take some time, we will clarify the truth through proper legal procedures.
The determination of whether intellectual property has been plagiarized should be made based on reasonable standards and procedures, not on unilateral and distorted interpretations. We express our regret that the efforts and achievements of our artists and members are being undermined by indiscriminate speculation and false information.”
They also talk about how ILLIT are suffering as a result of all this.
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Honestly, you should worship me for cutting all this down into what I did, because Min Hee Jin in particular was incredibly verbose. I do agree that the media blitz against her was an odd strategy by HYBE and that clearly backfired spectacularly on them, which is why so much of this is being fought publicly now. And it’s not exactly difficult to believe the room salon/Tenpro stuff (which was unresponded to) given how normalized that is, and sure, I’d definitely love to see the texts from HYBE executives as well.
That said, my impression of her statement was that she used a lot of emotional language and description explanations, while there wasn’t much the way of denial when it came to the text convos. MHJ hasn’t provided much reason to doubt the authenticity of those chats, and they invoked serious concerns about her treatment of an employee who reported sexual harassment and NewJeans as well.
As far as the BELIFT lawsuit against her, I have no idea what the result will be, but like I said a month ago:
I think I'm against MHJ's case on principle because it just encourages K-pop stans to be even more psychotic and annoying about "plagiarism".
— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) April 23, 2024
That said, if she has internal convos that show they did, then that's another thing altogether.
