In an official position, BELIFT LAB responded to NewJeans Hanni’s allegation that their staff told ILLIT to ignore her greetings. The agency then unveiled a timeline revealing what really happened.
On Oct. 7th, BELIFT LAB released a position of opposition after various K-media reported that the parent company HYBE tried to tamper with CCTV footage regarding Hanni.
This is after her accusation that ILLIT’s manager told the junior girl group not to accept the NewJeans member’s greetings, in the middle of HYBE-ADOR-Min Hee Jin’s conflict.
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BELIFT LAB stated:
“Following the outrageous plagiarism claims, we strongly demand that attempts to slander our rookie artist with groundless greeting issues should immediately stop.”
According to NewJeans’ mothers, the footage where the staff “bullied” Hanni was deleted to cover up the controversy.
However based on the timeline that the sub-label organized, the parents raised the issue on June 13, and the CCTV footage from May 14 to the said date that were all reviewed showed that the two groups only met once on May 27.
“The footage captured the brief encounter between the two groups on May 27 while they shared a room at the HYBE facility for 5 minutes, and the footage showed the ILLIT members getting off the elevator and bowing 90 degrees to New Jeans member Hanni, who was standing in front of them, as they entered.”
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On June 19th, BELIFT LAB relayed to ADOR’s board of directors that Hanni’s claim never happened.
But later on August 14th, former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin also checked the footage and speculated that Hanni’s story might have happened after this.
However, CCTVs in HYBE were only stored for 30 days and since three months already passed, it was impossible to do it. At the time, Min accused HYBE of purposely deleting it.
Currently, the case has reached the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee”and summoned Hanni as a reference witness to discuss “workplace bullying.”
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In response to this, ILLIT’s label said:
“Since the matter was first brought up, we have always encouraged that our artists, including those from other labels, be respectful, thus, we sincerely cooperated in the investigation.
However, despite providing all the explanations requested, new claims that cannot be confirmed as to the facts are being made, and as a result, things that never happened are being brought up in the National Assembly’s state audit, so we suspect that there may be another intention.”
BELIFT LAB also warned ADOR.
“If this issue continues to damage the reputation of our company, our artists, and our members and interfere with their work, our company will take all possible measures.”
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