MBC Under Fire For Its Cruelty As “My Teenage Girl” Eliminates A Contestant—Two Separate Times

On December 5, MBC‘s audition program My Teenage Girl aired their second episode, which was filled with many headliner worthy moments. Amongst them all, however, was one particular moment that featured a technical mistake and an unfortunate elimination.

During the episode, contestants Park Hyo Rim, Yoo Jae Hyun, Kim Ri Na, and Kim Soo Hye put on a riveting performance of Fin.K.L‘s legendary track “NOW”, which received high praise from viewers. The four talented girls showed off their vocal skills with the acoustic portion…

…and their dancing abilities with the performance portion, which stunned the judges.

And while each contestant did an amazing job showing off their skills, the time came for the judges to vote for their favorite contestants. However, it was here that the criticisms began.

In order for the girls to move onto the next round, they needed to receive three or more votes from the judges. Kim Soo Hye received 4 and Kim Ri Na received 3, which meant that they would advance to the next round. Yoo Jae Hyun and Park Hyo Rim only received 2 votes each, which meant that they were eliminated.

However, when the results were revealed, the judges soon realized that the votes were incorrect and the results were different from what they had told the production team. This resulted in an emergency meeting between the program’s production team and the judges.

Following the meeting, the host of the program Yoon Kyun Sang stood on the stage to reveal that there had been a technical issue with the vote count, while apologizing for the mistake.

After his apology, the host revealed the actual results—Kim Soo Hye, Kim Ri Na, and Yoo Jae Hyun all advanced to the next round, while Park Hyo Rim was eliminated. This meant that Park Hyo Rim was informed of her elimination on two separate occasions.

One of the judges Ok Ju Hyun couldn’t help her tears as she commented on the cruelty, while apologizing for “hurting [her] twice.”

And Ok Ju Hyun wasn’t the only one who believed the technical issue was cruel. Viewers who tuned into this week’s episode of My Teenage Girl immediately began to criticize the show’s production team, as well as MBC for airing the segment on the program.

During the second round, due to a technical issue they had to recount the votes. Because of this, Park Hyo Rim was eliminated twice in front of her parents. They hurt her two different times.

I had a hard time understanding why they would eliminate them in front of their parents, but an even crueler situation happened.

They could have announced the people who did pass following the issue or not bring Park Hyo Rim back out [on stage]. But they called her back out and eliminated her twice, so she cried twice.

Even if this is a survival audition program, this was too much.

— Anonymous netizen

MBC has not yet responded to the outrage regarding the technical issue and Park Hyo Rim’s cruel eliminations.