Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
About a year ago, the show iCON Z was briefly covered around these parts because former K-pop artist (and former J-pop artist, even then) Okamoto Ruan was a contestant and made the final lineup of what became MOONCHILD under LDH. Unfortunately, she has been on hiatus recently, and the company recently revealed that the reason for this was she is suffering from health issues due to what they are calling an ‘external instructor’ using inappropriate language and behavior.
She has been working hard in the “ICON Z ~Dreams For Children~” audition held in 2022, and has put all her energy into the preparation period after being accepted in the girl group division, until her debut in May 2023.
However, during that time, an outside instructor, who was also accompanying RUAN on an overseas music video shoot, repeatedly used inappropriate language and behavior toward RUAN that went beyond the scope of instruction, which led to RUAN becoming ill and requiring a leave of absence.
RUAN is currently undergoing medical treatment to improve her condition under the guidance of a doctor, but as she is not yet ready to perform, we have decided to suspend her activities for a while after discussions.
Although we have been providing as much support as possible, we have not been able to be there for her, and we sincerely apologize to her fans and other concerned parties for the concern and inconvenience caused by this situation.
Furthermore, fans have found hidden messages Ruan supposedly left, where she explains that her recent decline in health was due to power abuse.
Her response on the right side explains “It is because of パワハラ (Power Harrasment)” raising questions of abuse of power from a staff member
— LDH girls intl ♡ (@ldhegirlsintl) August 25, 2023
The fact that she developed a stutter from this is terrible, as that just sounds like an abuser inflicting trauma.
Note: As mentioned in the comments below, the group was additionally supposed to be seven members but two left before debut due to vague reasons that are certainly worth asking questions about now.
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Obviously people would like to know who it is and what is being done to address this, though by default the more vague they are about things, the more cynical I am about things being resolved appropriately. Even the worst people can be sheltered from repercussions if they can just remain behind the scenes.
At bare minimum, I hope for her sake that she can just work in a space where she doesn’t have to deal with them anymore and can focus on her job, especially since she seems to be very good at doing said job. Ruan is only 20, but she’s already gone through a lot of shit in Japan and Korea (like losing the rights toher name with an extra “n”), so it would be nice if she could just not be around shitty people for once.
