FM Entertainment Releases Official Statement Regarding Beomhan Being Assaulted In New York City
FM Entertainment has released a statement regarding K-Pop trainee Beomhan being assaulted in New York City.
Beomhan is a Chinese American trainee under FM Entertainment, and he is a member of the pre-debut group, M.O.N.T. Arena. Last year, Beomhan did a US tour with soloist Jay Chang. While in New York City after the tour, Beomhan was the victim of a hate crime.
During a February 12 live stream, Beomhan recounted the story of when a homeless man choked him and called him homophobic and racist slurs on the subway.
It was like a very in and out operation like he got on at like 34th Street and then he like did his whole rounds, he choked me, then got off on 22 right after. This was planned…He’s very efficient.
He didn’t even go around to the other guys. He just went around, talked to like three people like ‘Yo, look at this guy kind of dressed funny.’ That’s not the word that he used. He’s like, ‘Wow, look at this Chinese guy.’ That’s also not the word he used.
— Beomhan
Fans were very concerned after hearing Beomhan’s story, especially because a staff member was with him during the attack and did not intervene. Finally, on February 28, FM Entertainment released an official statement regarding the attack.
Hello, this is FM Entertainment.
This is an official statement regarding the subway attack incident that FM trainee Beomhan had experienced during has vacation days in New York. Beomhan was attacked during his break in his hometown New York early February after the rookie show USA schedules has ended. Beomhan was verbally assaulted and choked by a homeless man on the subway who had been asking for money.
As mentioned in Beomhan’s live, a staff who was also on break was present during this incident as both were spending vacation in New York at this time. Unfortunately it was an unforeseen incident and staff had no way to protect Beomhan in the sudden series of events. We are aware of the severity of this incident and the physical and mental harm Beomhan received. We are making sure he properly recovers through treatment and consultation.
In the future we will try our best to take extra precaution and protection for our artists to avoid such encounters. Our company and Beomhan hope to help bring awareness to society by accounting the incident in full details as we believe that no one should have to go through this sort of assault and have to live in fear. We hope that through the clarification of this event we can bring more awareness regarding these dangers. We are sorry to cause fans to worry in this process and we thank you guys for all the support and feedback. We promise to take better care of our artists in the future. Thank you.
— FM Entertainment
