Spoiler Alert
On August 21, Netflix‘s Pop Star Academy was added to the platform’s catalog. Pop Star Academy is a docu-series that follows the formation of the K-Pop-trained international girl group KATSEYE from casting to debut.
Dream Academy was the survival program that selected the group members, but the group’s formation began before that. Pop Star Academy begins with the training process for the members to be selected for Dream Academy, and some trainees who did not make it to the show are shown the program.
This would mean that they were eliminated beforehand but without reasons being given. However, the show’s third episode exposed the real reason behind a trainee not being included in Dream Academy.
Episode 3 saw the trainees working on their vocal abilities before another evaluation, but it began with project director Missy and Son Sung Deuk expressing disappointment over something that had not yet been revealed.
Near the end of the episode, Missy finally explains the drama that had been teased at the start. The trainees had been caught with private Instagram accounts, which violated the initial NDA and confidentiality rules they agreed to.
Some of the girls explained that it was insular between the trainees and functioned almost like a chatting platform, with Adéla adding that they only posted to their close friends.
Missy claims that some of the trainees had followers outside of the program, but what concerned her most was a video of a trainee singing an unreleased, original song. She says that because no one knows the debuting group’s sound is, hype would be built around that, meaning a leaked song could take away from that.
Missy asks Naisha, a London-based trainee who was respected for her dancing before the program, to meet her, to speak with her, ultimately revealing that it was her that posted the video.
Missy shares that HYBE x Geffen had decided to kick her out of the program, based on the private account she shared the video to having outside followers. Naisha denies this, offering a screenshot of her following, but Missy states that she reviewed the account herself leading to the decision being made.
The elimination was immediate, and Naisha was shown looking for housing back in London with limited funds. She was the only one eliminated from the program, though the staff enacted immediate changes for the other trainees.
You can read more about the trainee process below.
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