NewJeans’ parents and HYBE subsidiary trade words over bullying allegation
NewJeans’ parents and HYBE subsidiary Belift Lab have trades opposing statements over an alleged bullying incident involving NewJeans member Hanni and the manager of girl group ILLIT.Last month, NewJeans held a surprise livestream voicing their support for former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin amid the music executive’s ongoing feud with parent company HYBE.
During the stream, Hanni spoke of an alleged incident where the manager of another group told them to “ignore her” when they encountered one another at the company’s headquarters.During the stream, Hanni did not name the group involved but claimed she had reported the incident to new ADOR CEO Kim Ju-young, who allegedly “tried to gloss over the situation” due to lack of evidence.In a new interview with Ilgan Sports, the mothers of two NewJeans members voiced their concerns over Kim’s handling of the matter, expressing doubt on the integrity of the investigation.
According to them, the incident happened in late-May and was brought to Kim’s attention in June.They alleged that after calls for investigation, they were provided eight seconds of security camera footage of Hanni and the group greeting one another, but that the remaining footage had been deleted. “When we asked why the remaining footage was deleted, [the security team] said they did not know, as the person who did so had quit the company,” they said.The pair also shared that the board of directors at ADOR had requested materials from the investigation directly from Belift Lab, and questioned the neutrality of the process: “Shouldn’t HYBE be neutral and investigate it?
Also, wouldn’t it be right for the department or person in charge of workplace bullying at HYBE to do it?”Additionally, the parents also claimed that Kim told Hanni at a meeting on September 23 that she “should have told us [about the incident] quickly”, as it was now too late since the security footage had been deleted.
