🔗 [Exclusive] NewJeans’ Mothers: “BELIFT LAB’s Statement is a Lie… Security Said CCTV Footage of Not Greeting Hanni Was Deleted” (Interview)

“Because the factual details in BELIFT LAB’s statement were so different, we requested ADOR CEO Kim Ju-young to release a corrective statement. However, she refused, so we inevitably contacted you again.”

The mothers of NewJeans members corrected the factual inaccuracies in BELIFT LAB’s statement regarding the allegation that a manager of another artist told their artist to “ignore her” (Hanni), and they re-examined the essence of the incident.

In an interview with Ilgan Sports held late in the afternoon on the 8th, the NewJeans members’ mothers lamented, saying, “BELIFT LAB released a statement on the 7th, but there were too many incorrect facts in it.” They continued, “We all asked CEO Kim Ju-young to release a position directly as the CEO of ADOR regarding this issue. However, CEO Kim Ju-young said, ‘Even if we release a statement based on the content explained by the parents and Hanni, there is a high possibility of additional rebuttals arising, and if that happens, it will become a vicious cycle of having to rebut again,’ and stated she would not release a statement.”

Mother A said, “Even though we want to correct the facts because a problem has arisen now, we have nowhere to convey our position. That role should be performed by the agency, but since they refused, we had no choice but to contact (Ilgan Sports) again.”

Previously, during a NewJeans emergency live broadcast held on the 11th of last month, Hanni revealed that while waiting in the hallway of the HYBE building, she greeted another artist when she encountered them. However, when she encountered that artist again, the manager next to them said to the members, “Ignore her,” causing shock. In relation to this, the National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee adopted Kim Ju-young, CEO of ADOR and CHRO of HYBE, as a witness for the National Assembly audit regarding the issue of ‘workplace bullying,’ and adopted Hanni as a reference witness.

Regarding this, in an interview with Ilgan Sports reported on the 7th, the NewJeans members’ mothers claimed that while the CCTV footage of Hanni greeting the other artist remains, the footage that would contain the “Ignore her” scene has been deleted, and that the current ADOR management and HYBE are failing to take appropriate measures to resolve this.

In response, HYBE released a statement under the name of BELIFT LAB on its homepage on the 7th, asserting, “We strongly demand an immediate halt to attempts to slander our rookie artist with groundless greeting controversies following preposterous plagiarism claims.” They claimed, “The ILLIT manager never made the remark ‘Ignore her’ regarding a NewJeans member. When we checked this video on August 14 together with then-CEO Min Hee-jin’s side, Min’s side newly raised the claim that the failure to greet happened after this scene and that there must be another video.”

Mother A said, “BELIFT LAB claimed in their statement that it is ‘a matter of greeting within the realm of goodwill between labels,’ but this is misleading the essence of this problem.” She added, “Hanni has never raised an issue about the fact that they didn’t greet her. The problem is that the manager of another artist told those artists to ignore Hanni.”

She continued, “We have been trying to resolve this issue within the company. We have never outwardly specified a particular label or artist. It is none other than BELIFT LAB that is tarnishing the reputation of NewJeans and us through a statement containing false facts.”

Another member’s mother, Mother B, said, “CEO Kim Ju-young said she was flustered that we did an interview without consulting the company, but we have requested a resolution to this problem so many times since when, yet nothing was being resolved, so we simply responded to the request for coverage.” She added, “This time as well, we asked CEO Kim Ju-young for ADOR to release a statement regarding BELIFT LAB’s lies, but she refused, citing concerns about conflict between labels, which is why we requested an interview. If the company won’t fight against lies, where and how can we tell the truth?”

She continued, “CEO Kim Ju-young said she would make an announcement regarding greeting culture and manners among HYBE members, including artists, to the entire HYBE organization to prevent such things from happening in the future. I don’t know how many times we have to say this, but we are not raising an issue about ‘greetings.’ We raised an issue about the unfair treatment HYBE inflicted on NewJeans,” she emphasized once again.

Mother B said, “On June 13, the parents sent an email to the ADOR board of directors to officially raise the issue. At the time, CEO Kim Ju-young, who was an ADOR director and is now the CEO, showed a tepid response, so we requested several times to be sent photos of BELIFT LAB managers to identify the personnel involved, but there was no response.”

“They used the excuse that showing photos is a human rights issue. So we said, ‘Wouldn’t there be a manager in charge of the artist on the date and time Hanni mentioned? Please find that person at least.’ But we never received a proper answer.”

Mother B explained, “To check how much we requested regarding this issue, I checked the sent emails, and we pleaded and requested through emails and other means almost every week from June 13 to June 25, July 10, July 20, and so on until September.”

Another member’s mother, Mother C, lamented, “Since we hadn’t seen any footage before the CCTV check on August 14, BELIFT LAB’s claim that ‘Min’s side raised a new claim after seeing that footage’ is an explicit lie.” She added, “Also, even though this is not former CEO Min Hee-jin’s claim, they are misleading the essence by using the incorrect expression ‘Min’s side.’”

She burst into anger, saying, “Initially, they said only the person involved could verify the CCTV, so Hanni and one manager went and watched the video. How can they say ‘Min’s side’?” She continued, “Aside from Hanni and one manager, none of us have seen it. Yet, how can HYBE (BELIFT LAB) release a statement saying ‘Min’s side’ changed their words after seeing it? They always change their words and make up stories that don’t exist; it’s now to the point of being scary.”

Mother C said, “At that time, Hanni was incredibly busy preparing for the Tokyo Dome fan concert and activities in Japan,” adding, “So she went to check that footage after the activities in Japan were somewhat wrapped up.”

“From the time we first raised the issue, we clearly explained that it happened when Hanni was alone. However, on August 14, the video HYBE showed Hanni was allegedly a scene where Hanni was with an ADOR manager and Danielle.

Initially, when Hanni was checking the CCTV, the security personnel reportedly told Hanni, ‘There was a scene where you greeted them when going in, but they passed by without greeting when you came out again. Since you greeted them when going in, I didn’t think a greeting was necessary when coming out, so I didn’t keep [that footage].’ Hanni said that the security personnel couldn’t make eye contact and was trembling while telling her that story.”

Mother C lamented, “Hanni told this story to CEO Kim Ju-young in the meeting held after checking the footage, and CEO Kim even promised to verify the facts again since a new witness had appeared.” She added, “However, BELIFT LAB is discussing only the scene where those artists greeted 90 degrees in their statement, as if the fact that they passed by without greeting doesn’t even exist.”

Mother C emphasized, “This very point is the reason we suspect that HYBE or BELIFT LAB might have deleted the CCTV footage to conceal the truth.”

Another member’s mother, Mother D, said, “They keep claiming that it’s difficult to recover CCTV footage after 30 days, but we didn’t even ask to see the CCTV initially. We didn’t even know the CCTV existed. We thought it was fortunate that they secured the CCTV footage, but we were still concerned because there would be no audio and the mouth shapes wouldn’t be visible.”

Mother D said, “It is a difficult explanation to accept that they showed us an irrelevant video that didn’t match the situation we explained only two months after we raised the issue, and claimed the rest was deleted because the retention period expired.” She explained, “It appears to be a response with no will to understand the problem or resolve it, and as contained in the clarification email sent by CEO Kim Ju-young, the communication process was also opaque.”

Mother D pointed out, “This is because BELIFT LAB referred to the place that examined and deleted the CCTV as a ‘security company,’ making it feel like it was an outsourced company. However, the decision to check and delete CCTV is clearly an issue of the organization within HYBE. Attempts to confuse and distort even such minor issues are not the right attitude.”

“Currently, HYBE and BELIFT LAB are continuing acts of misleading the essence of the incident, let alone reflecting on their attempts to conceal and minimize the issue. We just hope that our children won’t have to experience these problems again; there is nothing else. I don’t know why they keep making up things that aren’t true.”