Min Hee-jin, famed superproducer and chief of ADOR, a powerhouse subsidiary of HYBE, speaks throughout a press convention in Seoul on April 25, 2024. The company behind Ok-pop sensation BTS, HYBE, mentioned on April 23, that it had launched an audit into its subsidiary label ADOR, which manages fashionable woman group NewJeans, a two-year-old Ok-pop phenomenon who’ve topped international charts. YONHAP / AFP
SEOUL, South Korea — The artistic director behind the woman band NewJeans has discovered on-line fame after a tearful, profanity-laced information convention by which she slammed a few of Ok-pop’s strongest executives as “middle-aged jerks.”
HYBE, the South Korean company behind Ok-pop sensation BTS, filed a authorized grievance on Thursday, April 25, in opposition to Min Hee Jin, the top of its powerhouse subsidiary label ADOR, for breach of belief in enterprise.
That adopted an announcement three days earlier that it had launched an audit of ADOR and demanded that Min resign. HYBE’s share value fell near 10 % after the audit was introduced and closed on Friday down 4.95 %.
Min, 44, hit again in a information convention on Thursday that drew empathy on-line from younger working women and men who in contrast her story with their very own experiences with unreasonable and jealous bosses who both took credit score for his or her work or did not acknowledge it pretty.
Others, nonetheless, mentioned she had acted inappropriately and unprofessionally by sometimes lapsing into profanity.
She denied HYBE’s accusations and claimed it was attempting to dismiss her unfairly after she accused one other of its subsidiaries, BELIFT LAB, of imitating NewJeans with a woman group of its personal known as ILLIT.
Min, talking off the cuff and infrequently breaking down in tears, candidly shared her frustrations for greater than two hours.
She referred to HYBE’s leaders, together with chairman Bang Si-hyuk, the person behind BTS, as “gaejeossi,” which interprets roughly to a “middle-aged or previous male jerk.”
“I really feel betrayed by HYBE… they used me till I used to be not of use to them,” she mentioned.
‘Undermined’
The live-streamed occasion, throughout which even her attorneys appeared embarrassed, had hundreds of thousands of views and drew an explosive public response.
One parody YouTube video seen by 2.5 million viewers mixed a clip of Min talking passionately with hip-hop music. The t-shirt and baseball cap she was carrying bought out on a number of on-line platforms and lots of others mentioned they’d suffered comparable experiences.
“Ladies who’ve actually labored (exhausting) and skilled being undermined by males, together with the soiled aspect of workplace politics, might by no means communicate ailing of Min Hee-jin,” a South Korean lady mentioned on social media platform X.
However Lee Moon-won, a tradition critic who watched the information convention, mentioned Min sidestepped the true allegations in opposition to her.
“No determine as influential as Min within the leisure trade has ever used curse phrases throughout an official press convention, individuals have actually by no means seen something prefer it, so this clearly has attracted huge consideration,” he instructed AFP.
‘Incompetence and vulgarity’
Min, who joined the trade within the early 2000s, is broadly considered one of the profitable producers in Ok-pop, having labored with stars resembling Women’ Era, EXO and SHINee.
NewJeans, a Ok-pop phenomenon that made its debut in 2022 and whose members are all underneath 20, is amongst HYBE’s most profitable Ok-pop teams together with BTS.
As one in all few profitable girls producers within the trade, Min has been acknowledged for her arresting visible imagery on quite a few Ok-pop hits together with Women’ Era’s “Gee” and EXO’s “Growl.”
NewJeans has topped international charts, together with the Billboard 200, and broke the Guinness World File final 12 months for “Quickest Ok-pop act to achieve 1 billion streams on Spotify.”
Min mentioned HYBE chairman Bang by no means congratulated her on NewJeans’ debut and that the mother or father firm had given promotional precedence to a different of its Ok-pop teams, Le Sserafim.
HYBE rejected Min’s accusations and urged her once more to resign and cease discussing NewJeans.
Some specialists criticized each Min and HYBE over a scandal that has gripped a lot of South Korea.
Ok-pop columnist Isak Choi mentioned these concerned confirmed “incompetence and vulgarity by not hesitating to publicly show infighting.”
Simply because Min criticized HYBE’s management, “it doesn’t imply she is free from the rotten problems with this trade,” Choi wrote on X.
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“She can’t grow to be the underdog just because she is combating with the administration, particularly after having gained astronomical advantages from inside it.”
