ADOR’s Min Hee Jin Claims That HYBE Originally Stopped Her From Taking NewJeans Away From Source Music Despite Causing Their Debut To Be Delayed
This article is part of our coverage of HYBE vs. ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin. You can read more and view the entire timeline here.
ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin held a press conference on April 25, 2024. During the conference, she touched on the issue of GFRIEND’s disbandment. Many fans had been loudly and publicly accusing Min Hee Jin of causing Source Music and GFRIEND’s downfall. Min Hee Jin had once worked with Source Music to create a new girl group, but she later took the trainees that would become NewJeans with her when she established ADOR. In the process of debunking these claims Min Hee Jin explained her process creating NewJeans.
ADOR Min Hee Jin Claims GFRIEND’s Disbandment Had Nothing To Do With Her
Only Minji had been a trainee before Min Hee Jin joined the company. Later, she realized that people would not be attracted to Source Music as a label, and put her own name on the line to advertise for auditions. After she promoted auditions as “Min Hee Jin’s new girl group,” that was when she began seeing a surge in talented audition hopefuls. That was how she picked up Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein.
She also explained how she ended up establishing ADOR. Apparently, Bang Si Hyuk did not agree with her direction for NewJeans. At that point in time, the group already had the songs “Attention” and “Hype Boy.” This was right when COVID-19 broke out, and Bang Si Hyuk was allegedly at a loss for what to do. She shared her proposal for her concept for NewJeans, but Bang Si Hyuk did not agree with it.
NewJeans was a very important group for HYBE, as they were meant to be the first girl group that HYBE would launch after creating their multi-label system. Min Hee Jin felt betrayed as many of the members and trainees joined the company because they were promised to be HYBE’s first girl group. She also claimed that Hyein’s parents were particularly upset because they had specifically been attracted to HYBE’s brand and they would never have joined the team if it was under Source Music. The parents allegedly cursed out HYBE using strong curse words due to the situation. She also claimed that they were worried about NewJeans’ debut, due to LE SSERAFIM’s Sakura and Chaewon joining the company. At this point, Min Hee Jin claimed that she was so baffled that she wanted to quit the company.
She also claimed that even though she oversaw the songs, production, etc, for NewJeans, HYBE stopped both her and the NewJeans girls from leaving Source Music at first. She questioned how HYBE would be able to handle the debut of two girl groups at once, and tried to convince Bang Si Hyuk to let her create ADOR so that she could expedite the process of NewJeans’ debut. If NewJeans had stayed with Source Music, their debut would have been significantly delayed as they would have only been able to debut after LE SSERAFIM became stable. She claimed that Bang Si Hyuk also said that they would never give her the girls and that they were to stay in the company.
After a long period of back and forth, Min Hee Jin finally managed to establish ADOR, and Source Music “sold” her the trainee contracts for NewJeans. ADOR paid for the contracts using money that HYBE had invested in ADOR.
News is being updated as the press conference goes on in real time. Stay tuned for more details on the matter.
