A Male K-Pop Idol Allegedly Let His Manager Harass A Woman On Set
Some fans meet K-Pop idols through work or by chance. Unfortunately, not all of these interactions are positive.
In a storytime video, Maya (TikTok user @myebabyyy) shared her encounter with a male idol and his manager. It happened while she was working as a model in Los Angeles, California. Maya said she was cast in a music video that featured a male idol she was not familiar with at the time.
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I debated quite some time whether I was going to share the story because it’s not a positive story. Here we are today, so I guess I am sharing it.
I used to live in [Los Angeles] as a model, and also I was a student at the time. This happened back in 2017, 2018 or something. I was scouted to be in a music video with a bunch of artists, and one of them was a K-Pop idol, who I did not know at the time because I didn’t really follow boybands. I was all about, like, BLACKPINK, Girls’ Generation, all that stuff.
— Maya
During the shoot, Maya crossed paths with a man who she describes as “the heartthrob of K-Pop at the time.”
It was supposed to be like a 12-hour shoot from 10 a.m. to like 10 p.m., and it was a closed set. Because it was a 12-hour shoot, I really got to spend a lot of time with the staff and artists that were there during the shoot. There were a few breaks here and there and I was outside just chilling, talking to one of the girls, and then this K-Pop idol walked out.
He was pretty famous, and he was definitely, like, the heartthrob of K-Pop at the time, I would say so. This man was having, like, a small break outside, like right next to me. So I was like, ‘Okay, like he’s part of the music video.’
— Maya
Since it was good manners, Maya said she politely greeted everyone on set, including this idol. She introduced herself and asked his name. “Because I didn’t know him personally,” she explained. “Just felt like that was the normal thing to do.”
The idol introduced himself to Maya in return, but to her shock, his manager suddenly interrupted their conversation. She said, “[The manager] was just like, ‘How do you not know this man? This man is famous in Korea, and he’s so famous in China. He’s so famous all over Asia, and all over the world. How do you not know this man?”
Maya was taken aback by the manager’s aggressive behavior. He berated her for not recognizing the idol and “his anger issues were going through the roof.”
So as the manager was going off on me, I was like, ‘What is going on? How did I even get here in the first place?’ This Korean man was going off on me, and it wasn’t just like a normal, ‘Oh, how do you know this man?’ It was more like, ‘What the f*ck? Where have you been in this world?’ His anger issues were going through the roof.
— Maya
Maya did not stand up for herself at the time or call out the manager’s unprofessionalism. Unfortunately, neither did the male idol, who she said, “was just standing there watching the whole thing go down.”
I found myself making excuses, and I was young at the time. In hindsight, I should have thrown hands, or something. Obviously, it was for work, so I didn’t wanna be difficult, in my head at the time.
He was just standing there watching the whole thing go down not saying anything and kind of going with whatever the manager said. This is a weird interaction. I don’t know how I got here. Weird. While that was happening, I got saved by, you know, the production, and they called us in to shoot more things.
— Maya
Although Maya did not name the male idol in her video, she did hint at his identity by stating that he is “in jail right now” for unspecified crimes.
Not that big of a deal, but at the same time, this man is in jail right now, and he has, like, many illegal charges on him, and so I guess karma’s b*tch.
— Maya
@myebabyyy Weird interaction 🍵 #kpop #storytime
