Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Media Line Entertainment, the agency of The East Light, has issued a statement in response to reports of verbal abuse and physical assault against the teenage/underage members of the group. Interestingly, the agency admits that a producer was abusing them and has resigned, but that the CEO Kim Changhwan had no knowledge.
“Hello. This is The East Light’s agency Media Line Entertainment. First, we want to apologize for the regretful situation that has occurred. It was approximately one year and four months ago that we first became aware of The East Light’s executive producer’s acts of physical abuse towards the group during their training and lessons. Afterwards, we spoke with the members’ parents to resolve the situation, and we promised that such acts would never occur again. There have been no such incidents since then, and The East Light has been actively promoting. However, the emotional rift between some of the members and the producer has deepened, which we believe has led to the current situation. The producer in question has taken full responsibility for his wrongful actions and has handed in his resignation, which we have accepted. Regarding the reports made earlier today of CEO Kim Chang Hwan, he has affectionately watched over the members from when they were very young trainees for the past four years, and though he has disciplined them at times like a parent would, he has never instigated or abetted any acts of violence. However, he feels pain at the knowledge that he was not as attentive as he should have been towards the members. We will work hard to find the best solution for the affected members and for The East Light’s future activities. Once again, we express our deepest apologies.”
The whole tone of this statement was very apologetic, which seems to indicate to me that it’s likely worse than what they will even admit here. And that’s pretty terrible considering they admitted the producer was abusing them and didn’t exactly issue a strong defense of the CEO either.
Regardless, a member of The East Light will be holding a press conference to talk about the abuse he suffered.
A legal representative of The East Light has since released an official statement announcing that a press conference will be held on October 19 to address the initial reports of abuse from both the producer and the agency’s CEO. The lawyer stated, “Member ‘B’ [from The East Light] will personally attend the press conference to give his own testimony about the abuse. He will also provide relevant evidence and answer questions from the press.”
The press conference should help in terms of getting this story out to the public. But regardless of what happens, even just using the agency’s response to the reports, it’s difficult to not believe The East Light’s side here.
Hopefully they are able to find the justice they deserve through the legal system (ha), as what they had to endure was truly terrible. It’s almost comical how the company seems to believe that they deserve to be forgiven or cleared in this situation after they previously swept the abuse under the rug, just because they promise it didn’t continue later on.
