NewJeans lashes out vs. HYBE, demands reinstatement of Min Hee Jin as CEO of ADOR

HYBE group NewJeans took to YouTube to call for the reinstatement of Min Hee Jin as CEO for the sublabel ADOR by September 25.

NewJeans on Wednesday opened a live broadcast on YouTube and, according to translations by Soompi,  shared that they had a meeting with HYBE label’s marketing department but believed that their messages were not communicated properly.

The group said that they believed Min and the members had a similar vision on what music and content they wanted to create and release.

Member Danielle also expressed that the former CEO was what made NewJeans “who [they] are.”

“She discusses even the smallest details with us and explains them in ways that we can understand clearly. NewJeans has a distinct color and tone, and this was created with CEO Min Hee Jin. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity, and we all feel that she is irreplaceable,” said Danielle.

The members noted how the new management would work differently than their old system under Min, who now had no “power to confirm or approve everything,” and that they may not be able to carry out their plans with the CEO.

“I personally want to keep working with the people around me that helped me grow mentally and helped me feel the life force within myself, for whom I am grateful, but I can’t understand why external forces keep interfering and disturbing us. I don’t know if I need to understand it,” Haerin said.

The group said that they only found out about Min’s dismissal through an article, which gave them a hard time and made them feel disrespected.

Another member, Hanni, also shared a story about how she overheard the manager of another HYBE group instruct its members to ignore her despite the greetings already being exchanged, and how the new ADOR CEO did not help her with the issue.

“Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand why I need to go through something like that. I told our new CEO about it, but she told me that there was no proof and that it was too late to do something about it now. Seeing her try to move past it, I felt that we had lost our protector, and I felt like [our new CEO] wasn’t worried about us. And I had told her honestly about [the incident], but I felt like in an instant, I had become a liar. But before, CEO Min Hee Jin fought for us a lot. The new [executives] say on the outside that they’ll help us, but they just made excuses and said it was an incident they couldn’t do anything about,” she said.

NewJeans firmly stated that they refused to follow HYBE’s orders “blindly,” that they should be treated better, and expressed their disapproval at how Min was expected to act as an executive producer while embroiled in a legal dispute with the company under the guise of helping them continue working with the former CEO.

“From a human perspective, I’d like you to stop bothering our CEO Min Hee Jin. Honestly, she’s so pitiful, and this just makes HYBE look like an inhumane company. What would we learn from a company like this?” said Danielle.

Minji added, “What we want is the original ADOR, where Min Hee Jin is CEO and where the management and production are combined. The reason we’re making this request is because this is the [only] way we can get along with HYBE, without fighting with the company. If our opinions have been properly conveyed, we hope that Chairman Bang and HYBE will make the wise decision to return ADOR to how it was by the 25th. Thank you for listening to us.”

The YouTube channel where the video went live has since been deleted.

Min Hee Jin was removed from her position as ADOR labels CEO on August 27.

According to her representative, the decision was made “unilaterally without her consent,” and was not discussed with her despite her attendance at a board meeting "regarding a change in the CEO position."

The dispute between HYBE and Min Hee Jin began in April, after the label filed a complaint against the former ADOR CEO for breach of trust in business.

Hybe said they had evidence that Min orchestrated a plan to seize the management rights of the subsidiary and separate from the holding company. Min denied this claim during a controversial press conference where she also made statements against several of HYBE's groups.

Currently, Min is involved in a 500 Million KRW lawsuit with Source Music, the HYBE sublabel managing girl group LE SSERAFIM, for “defamation and disruption of business” following her statements during the press conference.

She was also previously sued by another HYBE sublabel BELIFT, which managed ENHYPEN and ILLIT, for “for defamation and obstruction of business over her comments that BELIFT’s breakout girl group ILLIT had plagiarized NewJeans,” and plagiarism accusations against the aforementioned girl group. —JCB, GMA Integrated News