Volleyball Twin Claims She Never Stabbed, But Only “Held A Knife And Cursed” At Her Teammate
Previously, it was announced that the volleyball twins Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young were preparing to make a comeback after a 4-month hiatus that was taken due to their numerous school violence allegations. In the midst of the announcement, however, their former alleged bullying victims have begun to protest the twins’ volleyball return. To face the matter head on, Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young sat down for an exclusive interview with KBS News to apologize and to explain their side.
The two volleyball players began their interview with an apology to their former victims.
Lee Jae Young: “I feel very sorry for the actions I committed that caused pain to those friends.”
Lee Da Young: “I know that this one apology won’t erase (the pain.) If they have life-long trauma from it, then I will live my life having that life-long regret while apologizing for it.”
Following their apologies, Lee Da Young clarified some of the rumors that had previously circulated about her bullying actions.
There were rumors that I took a knife, stabbed someone in their neck and made them bleed, etc. That is completely false. All I did was hold the knife and cursed at her. My mom and I went to my teammate, kneeled in front of her, acknowledged my wrongdoings and apologized. She accepted my apology and we hashed it out.
— Lee Da Young
Lee Jae Young explained frustrations towards the twins’ former volleyball team, Heungkuk Life and their “demands” that the twins write an apology that was not completely true.
I really wanted to reveal parts (of the allegations) that weren’t true. However, the volleyball club demanded that we write an apology no matter what. They provided every word (of apology) and sent them over to us, which we just took and wrote down. The volleyball club informed us that this was the quickest way to quiet things down…
— Lee Jae Young
While the twins have apologized plenty of times before, the public’s criticisms have not ended, as they continue to treat Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young coldly. After viewing their KBS News interview, netizens reacted even more negatively, leaving hundreds of comments expressing their strong opposition to the volleyball players.
- “They have crossed a bridge that can never be uncrossed. They showed their true colors at the end when they tried to place the blame on their volleyball club. Because of these awful twins, I wonder how many of the players had to live in constant fear and terror…”
- “She said that she was angry while holding a knife…I wonder how scared (the victim) must have been…So she held the knife but didn’t wave it around?…What kind of apology is that…”
- “Oh, so she only cursed. Am I the only one that cannot get over the audacity of her and the way she made it seem like everyone behaves like that?”
- “So they didn’t personally come up with the apologies, but rather they just copied and pasted it? The way their volleyball club asked them to? Hahahaha omg their parents are the problem.”
- “These girls still have no idea what they did wrong hahahahaha I see you and I see your parents hahahahaha so you didn’t stab anyone with the knife, but you just held it. That’s the truth you wanted to reveal? You’re truly amazing hahahaha.”
- “Wow, they just admitted to their school violence on a public broadcast.”
- “Usually, the perpetrators never remember what they did. It’s because perpetrators remember things in the way they want to remember, it’s just a past memory to them. However, victims live with the trauma for the rest of their lives.”
As it was previously reported by Sports Kyunghyang, the twins were allegedly preparing to make a comeback into the volleyball world after the Korea Volleyball Federation (KOVO) announced that they would be re-registering Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young as players by June 30.
However, in new reports provided by KBS News and YTN News, it was revealed that the twins’ former team, Heungkuk Life has officially given up their intention to register them as players and will be relinquishing their rights to the girls.
While we desired for the girls to sincerely regret their former school violence actions and for them to resolve it amicably with their victims, it seems that that won’t be the case.
We believe it will be hard for them to promote as players within the league.
— Heungkuk Life Pink Spiders representative
This means that the twin volleyball players are now officially free agents and will be able to negotiate with any of the 7 other Korean women’s volleyball clubs. This also means that their former suspension and other disciplinary actions that have been placed by Heungkuk Life have been removed.
Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young previously made headlines after numerous alleged victims stepped forward to share their stories about being bullied by the twins. Stories of beatings, threats involving a knife, and bullying to the point of an almost-suicide death began to take over Korean news outlets. The twins admitted to the allegations and were dropped from their team, which ultimately led to their hiatus.
And while it was recently announced that Lee Da Young and Lee Jae Young were preparing to make a volleyball comeback following their 4-month long hiatus, KBS News and YTN News believe that the twins will have a difficult time finding a place within the Korean women’s volleyball league due to their allegations and constant negative backlash from the public.