During the National Assembly’s state audit, HYBE representatives presented internal documents which included shocking ploy of the agency against other labels’ K-pop idols.
On October 24, a state audit was held during the National Assembly summoning HYBE’s executives as reference people for monitoring of the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism.
Following the assembly’s leaked internal info widely spread online, it triggered the majority of K-pop fans after reading negative passages about other companies’ artists from HYBE.
More details on HYBE’s internal reports exposed at the National Assembly audit:
“Talking about the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and comforting people in that context is also meaningful. It was a moment to directly address the pain, and yet there’s a bit of nostalgia… pic.twitter.com/AsJklWKCvM
— 1tokki (@juantokki) October 24, 2024
In the document, HYBE quoted aespa’s “poor live singing skills” at the Coachella 2024, IVE members having plastic surgery, calling SM trainees, DKZ, and ZEROBASEONE “ugly,” and accusing NMIXX of supporting feminists.
It is also implied that the corporation has something to do with Seunghan’s past photos being circulated online, on top of the criticism of RIIZE over their dancing skills.
While it didn’t explicitly state that HYBE said these, K-pop fans were furious as to why the company felt the need to collect these statements and share them with their executives, sparking claims they used it to plan negative media play against the mentioned-above idols.
In a now-deleted statement, HYBE addressed this issue.
“The contents were only shared with selected internal staff for reference and only reflected how (netizens) react on SNS and online communities verbatim. It doesn’t reflect HYBE’s official stance (regarding the issues).”
HYBE further said that the whole report also contains positive reviews from the internet, and claimed that they were framed to look bad by cherry-picking negative comments and making it appear that they criticized the artists.
Lastly, HYBE gave a warning.
“We will see to it that whoever conducted this activity takes full responsibility.”
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