In case you missed one of the strangest stories in k-pop over the weekend, ZE:A's Lee Hoo has basically gone cray. It all started Saturday night when Lee Hoo tweeted a series of strange tweets attacking the CEO of their company, Star Entertainment. Among a vast plethora of at times undecipherable tweets he said:
I cried and asked you.. CEO Shin Joo Hak… I asked you not to cross the line.. You crossed the line that you shouldn't have and now you must deal with it. My lid is open. I have dealt with [everything], from hair loss to depression. Be prepared… President, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. All I wanted was a warm word.After this it later came out that essentially the CEO had agreed to pretty much everything including contract and profit adjustments.
Things seemed like they had maybe reached their conclusion until today when Lee Hoo took to the twitters again this time saying he would still wage war against the company but only if people tweet him their names and numbers as support. Wut?
I don't want to sound unsympathetic as I fully am aware that the working conditions many of these people work under would make a child sweat shop owner blush and this company is known to be shady even among other kpop agencies. Not to mention the CEO is a suspected dirtbag. This, however seems to be something else. Lee Hoo genuinely sounds like someone who needs mental help. At first I was really pretty interested in this because a kpop agency getting all their dirty secrets exposed could be good for everyone as far as improving working conditions. But at this point, with this story particularly, it's like either spill the beans or gtfo. You got everything you wanted (through blackmail, mind you). Right now this sounds either like some kind of ridiculous publicity stunt or someone who has lost it. I base this on everything that's been said so far.
I'm not sure what the end game is here but hopefully Lee Hoo gets some help.
This sounds like a person having a nervous meltdown. It went from him wanting to beat up the guy who broke his band mates nose in an MMA fight, to saying he tried to commit suicide, to threatening his CEO, to saying he's going against all the other companies. I ended up feeling really bad reading the translations of his tweets, felt like I'm invading something private.
ReplyDeleteThis dude sounds like he has a serious mental problem. And the settlement the company claimed they agreed on just sounds too good to be true. He just committed a suicide on his career and possible his group as well. Going around threatening everyone in the entertainment industry like that.. Best of luck though.
ReplyDeletePS: The sad thing is, this is possibly the only time anyone would ever pay this kind of attention towards the group, ever. They should just disband really.
What kind of numbers (and names) does he want exactly ?
ReplyDeletei was thinking the same thing. he want soemone to talk to? i'd give him my number :D
DeleteDamn, I assumed the tone was lost in translation and that he's just really pissed. At least he's not talking to ghosts?
ReplyDeleteNot to sound rude, but "publicity stunt" is the first sentence that popped to my mind as well. Star Empire is really desperate for attention lately, and it seems like they're been using any means necessary to generate some "buzz". The company even stated they want to release the "Extended" version (2 hours long) of the controversial Nine Muses documentary, just a week ago. The dude's tweet are really confusing, most of his rants sounds like pure nonsense to me. We probably will never know what's actually going on in the background, but this whole situation stinks.
ReplyDeleteI don't think having the extended version released is a bad thing and I think the director was intending to release the full version anyway. Having seen the extended version myself at a film festival I can say it providers abit more background into how the girls are treated (and lots of crying).
Delete"Not to sound rude"
DeleteLol this is akf honey
It's NOT a bad thing, at all! That doco is great (I am a 9muses "stan", btw), one of the most interesting things ever filmed about kpop. What I am tryng to say is that Star Empire has always marketed themselves building some kind of drama, like "you see guys? We're showing you what's happening in the backstage". If this whole "twitter scandal" turns out to be STAGED I would not be surprised. As Soyeon Friend said I don’t doubt anything he says about abuse or contracts, and that's probably something "bigger" behind that all.... guess we'll never know.
DeleteOh, apparently that documentary was never broadcasted in Korea before.... uhmmmm http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140923000946
Deletethe only conclusion I get from this is:
ReplyDeleteThe guy's not too well, yet I believe he's not lying, Star Empire seems to be full of shit. Otherwise, those with contracts expiring wouldn't had left so easily earlier this year. They're not even able to hold a stable line-up for both Jewelry and 9Muses, and if I know that is because those are two of the few K-Pop groups I follow.
Even if this guy got what he wanted (a bigger profit share, apparently), what did he really gain?
ReplyDeleteA "70% share" of ZE:A's non-existent income? Wow - what a windfall.
They have achieved nothing as a group. Zea is basically a failure. Some of the members do better as solo artists. And seeing as none of the popular members like Siwan or Hyungsik decided to turn up to speak alongside him, seems like they didn't want to get involved with this shit. It's a one-man crazy party
DeleteYeah, I didn't understand the whole point of this ordeal. I was going to write about it, but everything ended before I even had a chance. I really don't understand why the guy did this.
ReplyDeleteWait a second? There's a member of ZE:A called Lee Hoo? I have their profile open on another tab and there's no one by that name. Is it stage name?
ReplyDeletePreviously, it was Junyoung (The real name). He announced the changes last month.
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