Lee Hae In Reveals How “Idol School” Scammed 3,000 Trainees Who Attended The Auditions
PD Notes recently revealed their in-depth coverage of the current scandals surrounding CJ ENM and the Produce 101 series. The scandal first began with proof that Mnet manipulated the final votes on PRODUCE X 101 but have now spread to other similar shows that were produced by CJ and Mnet, like Idol School.
PD Notes was able to sit down with a popular contestant from the show, Lee Hae In. She revealed the shocking details about how the show was rigged from the very beginning and the clues that she missed before.
The show held an open audition where more than 3,000 hopeful trainees gathered for a chance to be on the show. Lee Hae In explained that the initial auditions were a scam from the beginning because all of the girls who made it onto the show didn’t audition at all. They were pre-determined by the producers.
Lee Hae In was even told that she didn’t need to go to the stadium audition filming at first but was later told to go to make the audition seem authentic with her popularity.
The producers first told me not to attend the audition stadium where the 3,000 trainees gathered. So I thought I didn’t have to go and didn’t prepare.
But the day before the audition filming, they told me to go because I had some popularity from Produce 101.
— Lee Hae In
She revealed that none of the final contestants who actually made it onto the show auditioned. Another contestant also revealed through a phone interview that the “producers told [her] to say [she] auditioned if anyone asked. But [she] never went to [the auditions].”
If you grab any one of the Idol School contestants and ask where they went for the first auditions with 3,000 trainees, you won’t get an answer because none of them auditioned.
[The other 3,000 trainees] were just used by CJ.
— Lee Hae In
The 3,000 trainees weren’t the only ones who were scammed by CJ ENM and the show. Lee Hae In was a top ranking contestants, only to be disqualified on the last episode.
She revealed that the show even had the lineups for the song groups already made up before the girls auditioned for their parts. Lee Hae In was disqualified from the song she wanted to sing, and was later told by a staff that the lineup was “already made up.”
I was disqualified even though I received a lot of compliments.
The producers apologized to me and said [the lineup] was already made up.
— Lee Hae In
When she was ultimately disqualified from the final debut lineup, she rose in the search engines as she was a sure candidate from the beginning of the show due to her talent and popularity.
CJ ENM claimed that she was the “true winner” for ranking above the actual debut members on search engines and promised to make a separate group for her to debut within the year.
Although she signed a contract with them for the year, the promise was a lie.
I met with the people from the company, and they told me, ‘Don’t you see that you’re trending as #1 on search engines? You’re the true winner.’
They told me that they’ll form another group called ‘Idol School Class 1’ and have be debut.
— Lee Hae In
Her fans believed that there was a misunderstanding and gathered everyone who had voted for Lee Hae In during the final round. The forum gathered over 5,100 evidence of votes cast for Lee Hae In but the final episode claimed she only received 2,300 votes.
This farther sparked the claims that the show was rigged and the votes were manipulated by the producers.
There were a continuous flow of fans who brought in evidence to prove that the votes [for Lee Hae In] was manipulated.
Just by the collected evidence, there were about 5,100 votes but the show claimed Lee Hae In only got about 2,300 votes.
— Lee Hae In’s Fans
Lee Hae In and her father continues to fight against the entertainment giant, CJ ENM. The police are currently investigating multiple entertainment agencies – including CJ ENM – about the manipulation of these audition shows.
Check out Lee Hae In’s full interview here:
