Belift Lab CEO Simultaneously Denies And Admits To ILLIT Being Influenced By NewJeans

Belift Lab‘s CEO Kim Tae Ho recently sat down for an interview with OSEN. He addressed the accusations of plagiarism that the company has been plagued with for months. ILLIT was accused of copying NewJeans.

According to him, while it was undeniable that K-Pop has been heavily influenced by NewJeans ever since their debut success, ILLIT’s concept was unique.

I think that there has not been a single group debuted that has not thought about NewJeans, or was not influenced by them ever since they debuted. I do think that the results NewJeans has achieved are incredible. That is something you have to acknowledge. People have been influenced by them, regardless if it is to become similar to them, or to become different from them. This is something you cannot deny. But even if you ask us, when we were making our debut team and deciding on a concept, we never thought, “If we make our group like NewJeans, it will be easier for us to succeed.”

Just as I have consistently been saying, ILLIT has never stolen Director Min or NewJeans’ ideas. This is definite. We have a lot of material to prove that we did not plagiarize, but we cannot tell the public to read it all. That is why as we have stated previously in the audit, this is a problem that has to be dealt with in the court, and we can only say that we are solving it as such.

— Belift Lab CEO

You can read more about the initial accusations below.

A “Compilation” Of ILLIT’s “Plagiarism” Of NewJeans Becomes A Hot Topic