HYBE‘s CEO Lee Jae Sang has apologized on behalf of the company for their inappropriate internal documents.
In an official statement, he apologized on behalf of HYBE for the company’s leaked internal documents.
“As HYBE’s CEO, I would like to apologize for the company’s internal monitoring documents.
I would like to bow my head in apology to the artists, industry officials, and fans in regards to our internal monitoring documents that were shared during the National Assembly’s audit with the Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism committee on October 24.
The documents were prepared through the collection of various public reactions and opinions in response to industry trends and issues. They were only shared within some members of leadership [of the company] for the purpose of understanding the public opinion and the fans, however the contents of the documents were extremely inappropriate. On behalf of the company, we acknowledge all of our wrongdoings and we take responsibility for the provocative and crude remarks made towards other K-Pop artists, the inclusion of the author’s personal views and evaluations, and the fact that these ideas were documented. In particular, we are very sorry and remorseful for the situations where innocent artists and members became misunderstood and were victims due to suspicions that came about through reverse-virality rumors that were not true. [T/N: reverse virality refers to spreading an idea with the intention to create a negative public opinion]
We would like to respectfully and officially apologize to the artists who were mentioned in the documents and were hurt by them. We have also contacted each agency of the artists mentioned and apologized directly to them. We also sincerely apologize to our HYBE artists, who are taking the heat for their company.
We acknowledge that the leadership who shared the documents lacked awareness of the potential issues they would bring and as the CEO, I have immediately halted the creation of future documents. I promise to establish guidelines and strengthen company compliance to prevent something like this from happening again.
Once again, I would like to apologize to the artists, industry officials, fans, and everyone who loves and supports K-Pop who were hurt by this. As the company CEO, I would like to say that I plan to comprehensively improve on the past wrongdoings and will do my best for the continued development of the K-Pop industry through self-reflection and by prioritizing the rights and interests of the K-Pop artists and fans.”
— CEO Lee Jae Sang
Earlier, it was reported that HYBE removed the executive in charge of writing the internal reports. HYBE’s reports attacked JYP Entertainment‘s female idols, accused aespa‘s Winter for copying LE SSERAFIM Chaewon‘s hairstyle, revealed plans to abandon NewJeans, and much more.
