Photo Credit: 티비텐 Olensglobal / CC by 3.0
NewJeans singer Hanni testifies to South Korean parliament about the K-pop industry’s notoriously brutal practices.
K-pop is a notoriously brutal industry, but a member of the group NewJeans has testified to South Korean lawmakers about workplace harassment.
Hanni, a 20-year-old member of the chart-topping group, claimed that the K-pop entertainment agency had deliberately undermined NewJeans, and alleged that senior managers had purposely ignored her in the company’s ongoing dispute with subsidiary Ador.
“I came to the realization that this wasn’t just a feeling,” she said, following multiple incidents. “I was honestly convinced that the company hated us.”
In response to Hanni’s testimony, Ador CEO Kim Joo-young vowed to “listen more closely” to her artists going forward, and wonders “if there was more I could have done.”
The Vietnamese-Australian artist was testifying at a hearing as part of an investigation by the Labour Committee of South Korea’s National Assembly into workplace harassment. Hanni was called last month to provide evidence, after NewJeans went public with allegations that Hybe mistreated them.
The mistreatment followed the dismissal of Ador’s previous CEO, the band’s mentor Min Hee-Jin, who co-founded the company. Min was a prevalent figure in NewJeans’ success, but the company dismissed her from her position during the summer, after allegations that she planned to split Ador from Hybe and take the K-pop group with her.
Though Min denied the allegations, NewJeans went public with their claims that the band had been snubbed repeatedly as a result of the feud. Hanni cited one incident in which she greeted members of another group at their record label offices, who were told by their manager to “ignore her like you didn’t see her.” When she reported the incident, her concerns were brushed off.
Hanni said she didn’t feel it was appropriate to “say something like that in the work environment.” She also said this wasn’t an isolated incident, and senior members of Hybe management had similarly ignored her.
“I understood from living in Korea that I have to be polite to older people and that’s part of the culture — but I think it’s just disrespectful as a human being not to greet us, regardless of our professional status.”
“There was a certain [disrespectful] vibe that I felt within the company.”
The performer also claimed to have seen employees bad-mouthing her band on Blind, an internal communications app similar to Slack or Teams. She said Hybe’s PR department contacted a journalist and asked them to downplay NewJeans’ achievements in articles about the band’s sales. Hybe has denied these accusations, and said there had been attempts to correct a factual error.
“I believe I did everything I could, but seeing that Hanni felt this way and that the situation escalated to this point, I wonder if there was more I could have done,” said current Ador CEO Kim Joo-young, who was also called to testify at the hearing.
Kim said she believed Hanni’s claims of being shunned by another band’s manager. However, she had been “unable to find supporting evidence” in CCTV footage, which had expired before she became aware of the situation and requested it. NewJeans, formed by Ador in 2022, are committed to a seven-year contract that expires in 2029.
