Produce 101 and Idol School’s Lee Haein’s Father Calls Out Mnet For Business Fraud and Vote-Manipulation

Lee Haein‘s father has come forward and called out Mnet for their alleged business fraud after Mnet failed to keep their promise of letting her make her debut.

Lee Haein competed in Produce 101 Season 1 for a spot in I.O.I. While she failed to make it into the final group, she was able to place #17 and join the first spin-off group, I.B.I. She then joined Idol School with the hopes of making it into fromis_9.

She ranked in the top 9 for nearly the entire show, only dropping out once to 10th place in episode 6. However, at the final episode, she dropped to 11th place, failing to make the cut again.

Her father stated in his interview to the press that he believed the votes could have been manipulated. Several other fan communities for Lee Haein also attempted to raise suspicions by showing that there were less votes counted for her than were submitted.

I had my suspicions that the votes for my daughter were manipulated when she was eliminated in the final.

I wanted to raise the issue back in 2017 at the time of the alleged vote manipulation, but I felt like I was forced to let it go because I thought it would create problems for my daughter’s debut later on.

— Lee Haein’s father

Her father told Donga Ilbo that CJ ENM suggested she sign with a CJ ENM subsidiary “A” while she was on Idol School and promised to debut the eliminated trainees too, but those promises went unfulfilled.

When my daughter was on Idol School, CJ ENM offered her a contract with one of its affiliates companies. The contract was signed because of the fear that she would be put at a disadvantage if she rejected the offer.

CJ ENM promised to bring together trainees who were eliminated from Idol School and debut them later, but the promise was not kept. My daughter was unable to try and join a different company due to being under contract.

— Lee Haein’s father

Lee Haein’s father has been working two jobs in order to support her since she was in high school. He intends on taking any and all legal action if vote-manipulation is confirmed through the police investigation.

CJ ENM released a statement regarding their failure to debut the other trainees.

Among the trainees who were on the show, we asked some of them to sign contracts as potential debuting trainees, and Lee Haein was one who accepted.

We did our best to have Lee Haein (and the other trainees) make their debut even after elimination from the show, but we feel sorry that it did not work out.

Lee Haein announced her intentions to leave the agency for reasons such as being unable to make her debut, and after months of discussions, we terminated our contract with her.

— CJ ENM