The Pandemic Literally Took Away A Debut Opportunity From A Trainee At Highup Entertainment

While STAYC debuted as a 6 member group eventually, there were originally 8 trainees in the final lineup for the group. As documented in YouTube Premium documentary, K-Pop Evolution, the group underwent stringent tests and evaluations to confirm the debut lineup.

During the last evalutation, trainee Minjung had been eliminated from the group. Thankfully, she found placement in P Nation.

For longtime K-Pop fans, you may recognize her from her first appearance on public broadcast during K-Pop Star. Here, she was merely in elementary school.

She later went on to appear in various audition programs such as Produce 101…

…and Dancing High.

In the documentary, we were also introduced to Chang Chien-Chien, Lydia. She hails from Taiwan and had been training with the girls. Fans have likened her beauty to TWICE‘s Tzuyu

Although she had made it to the final lineup and even participated in the last evaluation, it was revealed that she had been taken out of the debut ultimately due to visa issues. She had temporarily returned to Taiwan to sort out some visa problems, but failed to return because of the pandemic. The pandemic prevented global travel for some time back in 2020.