STELLAR Reveals Their Shockingly Low Payment Received Over Their 7 Year Promotions
STELLAR‘s Gayoung and Minhee uploaded a video on YouTube, where they answered some of the most popular questions they received from fans and netizens.
One of the questions they answered regarded a popular belief among malicious commenters that claimed STELLAR members are pretending to be hopeless victims, when they actually made a lot of profit from their controversial performances.
Gayoung had refrained from talking about their income before, as it was a sensitive topic that involved other parties, but she decided to clear the air.
“I read all of the comments, and I’ve seen a lot of comments that say, ‘You’ve had a hard time. But you’re running a cafe now. Doesn’t that mean you made a lot of money? Isn’t that enough?’
To be honest, this issue involves a lot of people – like my members – and I felt people would pity us more, so I didn’t talk about it before.”
— Gayoung
Minhee first clarified that the group indeed received a lot of love calls from events, asking them to perform. When they had a packed schedule, their former CEO even gave them a tiny bonus for that month – but only during the packed months.
“It’s true that we performed at many events during STELLAR. We did make a lot of money when we performed at many events.
When we were promoting ‘Marionette’ and had booked a lot of events, our CEO did give us a little bonus for that month.”
— Minhee
Considering how they received love calls to perform at numerous events, you’d think they were paid a good compensation. However, the members revealed that the agency never paid them the correct amount.
Each of the members didn’t even get paid 10 million won (~$9,000 USD) in total over the 7 years together!
“But if you add up all of the profits that we made over the 7 years… It wouldn’t even add up to 10 million won (~$9,000 USD) per member.
— Gayoung and Minhee
Gayoung explained that the agency never paid the members what they were due. She asserted that they aren’t playing the part of a victim but are actual victims to corrupt management.
“We honestly never got paid correctly before…
Many people think, ‘You guys booked a lot of events, and made a lot of money. That should be good enough. Stop cosplaying as a victim.’
I don’t care what other people may think, but we didn’t make as much profit as they think we did. We never got paid correctly.
— Gayoung
Gayoung clarified that she was able to open her own cafe but the money she put into it from her STELLAR days didn’t even account for 1% of the funds.
Minhee even revealed that the agency stopped paying them all together when the company was facing financial troubles at the end.
“During the end, our agency struggled financially, so they stopped paying us… at all. That’s how we disbanded.”
— Minhee
Putting their unfortunate memories aside, Gayoung and Minhee are looking forward to making better (and probably more profitable) memories in the future!
