Well, so much for being able to relax a bit while sick. Fortunately, I’m well enough now to sit upright as the newest in the HYBE/ADOR mess might be the biggest, with NewJeans themselves holding a live broadcast and accusing new ADOR management of mistreatment.
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They start by saying their message is ultimately directed and HYBE, and they had a meeting to express this to management already but they felt it wasn’t conveyed.
As one might predict, it revolves around them wishing to continue with Min Hee Jin running the show.
Expressing their desire to continue working with Min Hee Jin, Danielle said in English, “Even before debuting as NewJeans and through all of the time that we spent together with CEO Min Hee Jin, all of us felt that the music we wanted to make and the kind of world we wanted to build together—our vision—was similar in so many ways. With CEO Min Hee Jin, we were able to prepare each and every task with sincere hearts, and I believe it shows in our work. Putting our sincere effort into something is only possible because the people that we’re working with have trust in each other and have that same vision.
“CEO Min Hee Jin is not only the person that produces our music, but someone who makes NewJeans who we are. She discusses even the smallest details with us and explains them in ways that we can understand clearly. NewJeans has a distinct color and tone, and this was created with CEO Min Hee Jin. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity, and we all feel that she is irreplaceable.”
They also talked about how they are being isolated, as a manage of another group told them to ignore them.
“I was waiting alone in the hallway one day,” she said, “and members of another group passed me together with one of their managers. So we greeted each other well. But when they came back out a little while later, their manager told them in front of me, ‘Ignore her.’ Even though I could hear and see everything. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand why I need to go through something like that.”
Hanni continued, “I told our new CEO about it, but she told me that there was no proof and that it was too late to do something about it now. Seeing her try to move past it, I felt that we had lost our protector, and I felt like [our new CEO] wasn’t worried about us. And I had told her honestly about [the incident], but I felt like in an instant, I had become a liar. But before, CEO Min Hee Jin fought for us a lot. The new [executives] say on the outside that they’ll help us, but they just made excuses and said it was an incident they couldn’t do anything about.”
Speaking on the new management, they have doubts about how things will work from here on out.
Emphasizing Min Hee Jin’s role in the company, Minji remarked, “Our new management says that they’ll separate production and management, but we have always operated differently from other labels… Now, Min Hee Jin does not have the power to confirm or approve everything, so how can we continue working as we were before?”
Hanni echoed the sentiment in English, stating, “The way that ADOR used to run was the business management and creative production was not separated and was [sic] factors that played and worked in harmony with each other. That’s how it worked, and it was perfectly fine. It was our way of working and our CEO’s way of producing NewJeans’ content, which a lot of you were able to enjoy and appreciate. But now that she’s no longer CEO, these factors that should have continued to work together in harmony are now being seen as two different areas of work.”
Danielle chimed in, “As I said before, it was our dream to perform the music we wanted to make together with Min Hee Jin, and we were working hard for that dream. But now we can no longer achieve those dreams, and we may not even get to carry out all the plans we’ve made.”
Haerin went on, “I personally want to keep working with the people around me that helped me grow mentally and helped me feel the life force within myself, for whom I am grateful, but I can’t understand why external forces keep interfering and disturbing us. I don’t know if I need to understand it.”
They concluded by asking for Min Hee Jin to be reinstated as CEO.
Hanni said in English, “We have the choice to choose how we will react to each situation, and we are not going to follow HYBE’s every orders blindly. We are more than well aware that this is getting in the way of our work and that we should be treated much, much better than how we are right now. And it’s very hard to believe that they are truly sincere about wanting to help us continue to be able to work with our CEO Min Hee Jin. Despite her being in the midst of all this current legal conflict, she’s expected to plan and creatively produce our future endeavors in just only two months, which I personally think makes no sense at all. We don’t want to hear all the empty words of how they’re going to help us continue to work with CEO Min Hee Jin. And we all want is this legal conflict to be resolved and have our working environment returned back to normal, the way it was before.”
Hyein firmly continued, “Please return CEO [Min Hee Jin] to her position, and please return ADOR to the way it was before, not this unfamiliar new environment with these unfamiliar new people.”
Danielle added, “From a human perspective, I’d like you to stop bothering our CEO Min Hee Jin. Honestly, she’s so pitiful, and this just makes HYBE look like an inhumane company. What would we learn from a company like this?”
Minji concluded, “What we want is the original ADOR, where Min Hee Jin is CEO and where the management and production are combined. The reason we’re making this request is because this is the [only] way we can get along with HYBE, without fighting with the company. If our opinions have been properly conveyed, we hope that Chairman Bang and HYBE will make the wise decision to return ADOR to how it was by the 25th. Thank you for listening to us.”
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Okay, so I know people likely want to have their take on this at the moment, thus I went out of my way to put this up.
My initial reaction is to say that I feel bad for them being caught basically used as pawns in a corporate power struggle. It’s not really hard to believe them, regardless of how one feels about Min Hee Jin. She’s worked with them and their families closely (perhaps oddly close) since they were young teens, and under her guidance they’ve reached international fame in a brutal industry full of hyped underachievers, so people being baffled by their loyalty to her is in turn confusing to me.
I guess what I’m saying is I understand the impetus of doing this broadcast, but I also wonder what the end game here is. They’re clearly not getting Min Hee Jin back sans a lawsuit win, if nothing else because HYBE doesn’t want to pay those put options, and if the idea here was to lay the groundwork for a lawsuit, it’s too much too soon. Time would be better spent compiling evidence before inserting themselves in the middle. Of course, perhaps they’re not thinking of an end game, and it’s just five young women expressing their frustrations, which I get, but in this moment I’m not sure it really helps themselves. Either way, I wish the best for the idols and basically only them.
