Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
In what has been an ongoing saga that has seemingly just concluded — at least on the idol’s side of things — an alleged scam victim of the mother of P1Harmony member Keeho recently released an apology to the idol for involving him in the matter.
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Backtracking a bit, the mother of Keeho (and 82MAJOR‘s Yoon Yechan) Kim Jenny was sued back in March of 2024 for fraud. One of the alleged victims was Park Sang Hyun, the CEO of production company HUG INTL, and he revealed not only his losses but that of others as well.
In an over-the-call interview with Xsports News, Park revealed that he alone incurred damages worth ₩1.10 billion KRW (about $823,000 USD) in this fraud, and there were at least 10 more victims close to him, whose total damages amount up to ₩3.00 billion KRW (about $2.25 million USD). However, apart from the group of people close to Park, there are other victims as well, and according to him, the complete financial damage suffered in this case by all victims approximates ₩30.0 billion KRW (about $22.5 million USD). He also mentioned that the lawsuit had been filed against Ms. A jointly by him and some other victims.
Almost a year later, he took to Instagram about a week ago, directly addressing Keeho.
“I heard that you offered to pay me the ₩300 million KRW (about $207,000 USD) that your mother owes me, but that in return, you don’t want me to mention your name anymore because it has been difficult for you. You know, people say children are mirror reflections of their parents. That seems to be the case, indeed.
Listen to me carefully. I sent the ₩300 million KRW (about $207,000 USD) to your mother. Then, she asked for ₩800 million KRW (about $551,000 USD) more to be sent to someone named Chairman Park. I did. I wanted to meet this Chairman Park first, but she wouldn’t let me. She did assure me that she trusted him 2000% and that she had known him for two decades. She told me not to doubt anything and to simply trust her. She guaranteed that things would not go wrong, swearing on you, your brother, and your uncle.”
He continues to detail his struggles, then urges his mother to take responsibility, and also hits out at FNC Entertainment.
FNCE then recently released a statement about the matter, clarifying that Keeho has nothing to do with any of this.
“The incident concerning Keeho’s mother was reported to the police last year, and after an investigation, the case was closed with a decision of no charges. However, we learned that a reinvestigation has recently begun following the victim’s appeal.
Keeho is completely unrelated to this incident and was entirely unaware of how the situation had been handled up until now. Despite this, Keeho’s name has been mentioned multiple times on the victim’s social media. Regarding this, the victim has since clarified the misunderstanding and expressed an apology to the artist.
However, if the investigation reveals any wrongdoing on the part of Keeho’s mother, she will, of course, take full legal responsibility. Separately, as a son, Keeho feels deep regret toward the affected party and will do his utmost to help resolve the matter.
As this case is currently under investigation, we earnestly request that people refrain from malicious slander, indiscriminate personal attacks, or the spread of unfounded rumors about the artist. We sincerely apologize for causing concern to many due to an issue involving the family of one of our artists.”
Okay, so that answers a question I had about the status of the lawsuit. I guess the recent post was because it had been dismissed in court.
Apart from that, FNCE claims Keeho isn’t involved in this, which could make sense since the alleged victim even says in his statement that he only heard about Keeho’s involvement, not that it was done directly. FNCE also says the alleged victim apologized for involving Keeho, which he then did publicly on his Instagram account.
“I heard from my lawyer about what you conveyed through your lawyer a few days ago, and it seems I reacted too emotionally without taking the time to think it through. Upon reflection, I have realized that even though you couldn’t possibly know much about the situation, you sincerely apologized and expressed your intent to find a solution for the damage, which I misunderstood. I now feel deeply sorry for how I reacted. The truth is, even though you’re not involved in this matter, I was only thinking of my own position. Once again, I’m sorry that you had to apologize to me and put in effort to resolve this issue despite not having anything to do with it. And I’m also thankful for it.”
A bit late for that after over a week of netizens shitting on him while they also go on about how they need to be more understanding and less toxic regarding public figures. It was a lot for something that turns out currently doesn’t even have legal standing.
Not only that, but most of this was apparently because the alleged victim wired over $500k to some random guy he never met based on somebody saying “trust me, bro”. Come on, man. Then again, I guess the Hawk Tuah girl rugpulling her memecoin (allegedly) technically had “victims” as well.
Anyway, Keeho also apologized to fans for all the mess, and hopefully at least the idol’s part ends here.
