ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin held a press conference on April 25, 2024, responding to HYBE Labels‘ allegations against her. The former creative director of SM Entertainment also revealed her chats with HYBE Labels’ founder, Bang Si Hyuk.
Previously, HYBE released a statement to the press alleging the ADOR CEO‘s breach of trust. The entertainment conglomerate claimed they have collected “concrete evidence that a plan to usurp management control was established under the direction of ADOR’s CEO.” They added: “One of the auditees submitted digital evidence containing information about the plan to seize management control and contact outside investors and admitted that they had written documents to attack HYBE during the investigation.”
Min Hee Jin responds to HYBE’s allegations of management take over in press conference
In response to HYBE Labels’ allegations, Min Hee Jin held a press conference with her attorney to present her side of the story. The 45-year-old CEO stated that Bang Si Hyuk “intentionally” wanted to confuse people while launching Source Music’s new K-pop group, Le Sserafim. She said, “They never let me promote NewJeans as the first girl group from Min Hee-jin because they intentionally wanted to confuse people. That was all Bang Si-hyuk’s doing.”
Min Hee Jin revealed her chats with Bang Si Hyuk, where the HYBE leader asked if Min Hee Jin’s girl group could take over Aespa in December. Weeping to the press, she said, “Bang Si-hyuk asked me, ‘You can beat aespa in December, right?’ But that was never my goal.” She added, “I thought that he was a really generous person, but I found that he was different on the outside from how he was on the inside.”
Min Hee Jin continued, “I know that I look weird to him. After NewJeans released ‘Ditto,’ he suddenly asked me, ‘Are you happy? Why are you laughing? I want to know.’ Why wouldn’t I have been happy? Doesn’t the conversation seem really weird? Our relationship had changed.”
ADOR CEO also denied her involvement in plotting against HYBE. She stated, “They’re hitting me with the ‘management seize’ frame, but I just cannot agree. I know that’s what you read, but when I speak about plagiarism, it’s like people dismiss me and think I’m talking about something completely different.”
She also addressed the “solid evidence” HYBE talked about, saying most of her talks with the Vice CEO were taken out of context. “The things that I’ve been speaking with my vice CEO are just things we discussed out of intimacy. Yes, some things went over the line, but the conversations have been removed from the context of where they came from. If someone framed you a certain way and edited your own conversations, it would be so easy to make a new story out of it,” she clarified.
Meanwhile, HYBE CEO Park Ji Won addressed the public in the official statement, assuring that the company is taking proper measures to overcome the current conflict. He said, “I am apologetic for causing concerns to fans, artists, and personnel [of the labels] for what happened in the process of upgrading the multi-label [system].”
He added, “Now that the incident has concluded, we will maximize our efforts for the psychological counseling and emotional stability of the artists, who are valuable assets of K-pop.”
Stay tuned for more updates.
