Rookie girl group idol alleges the members were sexually assaulted by staff; agency responds

[rockerista03.livejournal.com]

[BREAKING] Rookie girl group idol alleges the members were sexually assaulted by company officials and managers
https://t.co/dfafbmQ6ig pic.twitter.com/HTE1NUxtPt

— Daily Naver (@dailynaver) August 1, 2020

Rookie girl group idol Ari has refuted the agency's claims over the group's disbandment.

TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The Yellow Bee member shared a lengthy message on her Instagram on the 31st and stated, "The company is saying that the members are promiscuous but they don't even know what the word disorder means. In fact, it's not the members that acted rashly or promiscuously but the company."

She continued, "The members were sexually assaulted, harassed, and molested by company officials and managers. A company official dragged a member to the practice room and tried to have sex. The only people that were able to stop him were the members."

"They official also did a lot of skinship and asked us to call him "oppa" and kept touching our thighs. The former manager used to say things that are hard to speak about. Things like "lets go to the motel and create a baby."

Ari also confessed that she had not received any settlements from the agency. For their Japanese schedules, the members had to purchase their own plane tickets and handle their own luggage without staff at the airport. Even in Japan, the members did not receive any care from the managers.

Ari stated that the reason they all quit the group wasn't because the members were promiscuous but because of the unfair treatment. She stated, "We quit because we couldn't justify the unfair treatment we were receiving."

In the meantime, Yellow Bee's agency Addiction Entertainment revealed on SNS that "they had intentions of continuing the group but were worried they couldn't narrow the differences between the agency and the members and because of alleged promiscuous activities by B. But in the end they internally made the decision to disband the group."

Yellow Bee's agency responds to Ari's claims

On July 31, Yellow Bee’s agency, Addiction Entertainment, announced that the group has disbanded. The agency wrote, “We had planned to continue Yellow Bee’s activities, but due to promiscuous behavior in member B’s private life, the agency and the members were unable to come to an agreement.”

Member Ari responded by posting on Instagram with a statement in which she first denied that the member had been promiscuous and then outlined times when the members had been sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by the agency’s staff.

On August 4, Addiction Entertainment addressed some of these points in the following statement:

Hello, this is Addiction Entertainment’s official statement.

First, thank you for showing much love and interest in Yellow Bee and Addiction Entertainment. We are issuing this statement to share our official stance regarding the incidents. We met with four Yellow Bee members, excluding member B, and we are issuing the statement that was written with their agreement.

First is the incident that happened about a year ago. It occurred at an event venue. There was a family in the audience who had a child. She said that when she saw the child, she said, ‘I want to have a cute child like that when I get married in the future,’ and the manager standing next to her had heard and said that rude remark.

The manager said that it was a joke, but we could not just move past it as it was a serious issue, so our company severely reprimanded him at the time. However, we did not tell the members when we took care of the issue. That manager left the company a year ago.

Next, we will address the incident of sexual harassment. This case is related to a music video producer named Yoon. Yoon is not an agency staff member. He has never worked as an employee of the agency, and he is also someone who has caused a lot of damage to our company as well.

There were a lot of work-related matters to talk about it and we had a desk empty in the office, so he asked if he could use the desk. We permitted it for the sake of the production of a better music video. That would be why the Yellow Bee members misunderstood and thought he worked for the agency.

Many people who saw the music video said it looked “cheap” and asked, “Did you film it on a rooftop?” but we had no choice. It had been decided that Yoon would film the MV and he had only sent the MV cue sheet. There was no feedback two to three days before the filming was to begin, so our agency directly called the music video director.

However, the director replied that Yoon had said he would pay them a deposit but they hadn’t received anything at all, so they said the filming was cancelled. The members’ debut date had already been announced and there were articles about it, so we ended up filming the MV in a rush.

We want to say more about Yoon, other than the MV, but since the important thing is the sexual harassment incident, we will just talk about the main topic. At the time, the agency director and a female manager were there. They did not see the sexual harassment take place. We did not even imagine that Yoon would do that sort of thing in front of people, and we think it was a large mistake to have not been paying attention to the members.

The members went to stop him when he was bringing her to the practice room, and after that, people including the agency director and manager cursed him out and there was a fight. This happened after the members had gone home, and since it was an unpleasant matter, we did not tell the members that there had been a fight. So it’s possible that the members could have thought that the agency hadn’t taken any measures in response.

Rather than assigning blame in this matter, our agency feels great responsibility over being unprepared for this kind of incident. We express our deep apologies to the Yellow Bee members who experienced mental anguish, the fans, and to everyone who may have experienced discomfort.

Source: Nate via Daily Naver, Naver via Soompi, @dailynaver

Comments

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

That's horrifying. I feel awful for them, being traumatized like this, having your career derailed and then the company tried to say it was because a member was "promiscuous"

I didn't like the agency's response, either. "Yes a manager harassed a member, but we fired him. Yes, a MV producer tried to rape a member, but he doesn't work for the agency and somebody fought with him so that's enough." Saying sorry to the group at the end doesn't mean anything because the whole statement was just trying to avoid responsibility in the eyes of the public not really trying to make it right with the group. There's a problem with the culture of the company that allowed this to happen and you initially tried to blame the members.

[myrrhcat.livejournal.com]

absolutely awful, I want justice for the members.

the hard part of being into nugu groups is never knowing what kind of abuses take place behind the scenes, even moreso than with larger companies.

[aures.livejournal.com]

i read about this earlier this week, this is so devastating and aboslutely horrifying

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

"lets go to the motel and create a baby."

Why do men think that this is something women want to hear??

[aeries-amethyst.livejournal.com]

The awful thing about this is that because they're a nugu group, these incidents won't blow up as much as if they were from a popular group so it gets easily swept under the rug. I'm sure even popular groups face sexual harassment and have to bear with it to avoid the scandal of it getting out even if they're not the ones in the wrong. This sickens me so much. They shouldn't have to put up with this at all. This company needs to be run into the damn ground for even blaming the members in the first place.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

Seriously! If they hadn't responded on Instagram, people would have walked away thinking it was the members' fault. Awful. They'll probably wait and debut another group and pretend that nothing happened.

[frequency.livejournal.com]

this is so awful and disgusting :(

[kcaomei.livejournal.com]

beyond disgusting :( those poor girls

i feel like some of these nugu companies are literally created by predators who then in turn hire predators etcetc. the fact they even thought to try to blame the members?? horrifying

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

Predators are attracted to careers where they can have access to potential victims. I hope they get justice but have no faith in the legal system.

[hiimgosu.livejournal.com]

this is absolutely sickening. i can't even wrap my mind around this right now.