🔗 2025-03-07 Chosun Biz, “Min Hee-jin Led the “Ignore Her” Narrative”

ILLIT Bows 90 Degrees to NewJeans’ Hanni… “It Was Min Hee-jin Who Drove the ‘Ignore Her’ Narrative”

ADOR Releases May 2024 CCTV Footage to Refute Claims

ADOR, a subsidiary of HYBE, Korea’s largest entertainment agency, released footage on the 7th showing members of ILLIT (an idol group under BELIFT LAB, also a HYBE subsidiary) bowing 90 degrees to NewJeans’ Hanni.

This directly refutes NewJeans’ claims that on May 27, 2024, at the artist-exclusive area of the HYBE building, ILLIT’s manager told the members to “ignore” Hanni and not greet her, and that HYBE deleted the CCTV footage.

The so-called “Ignore Her” incident is cited as the background for Hanni’s appearance at the National Assembly audit in October of last year, and as one of the reasons NewJeans claimed for terminating their contract. This is because instructing artists to ignore someone constitutes malicious ostracism and harassment, and their agency ADOR allegedly took no action against the manager or BELIFT LAB.

The incident originated in September of last year when Hanni claimed during a YouTube live broadcast that she heard an ILLIT manager say “Ignore her.” A complaint regarding this incident was subsequently filed with labor authorities.

ADOR released the CCTV footage during the key arguments of the “preservation of agency status and prohibition of advertising contract signing” injunction hearing held at the Seoul Central District Court on this day. According to the footage, three ILLIT members can be seen entering the hallway while bowing 90 degrees to Hanni. The footage also shows them bowing 90 degrees to NewJeans’ Danielle as she walks by.

However, since the CCTV footage does not have audio recording capability, it could not be confirmed whether the ILLIT manager made the “Ignore her” statement.

Claims also emerged that the source of the “Ignore her” statement was not the ILLIT manager but former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin. ADOR disclosed in court the KakaoTalk messages between Hanni and the former CEO that had been submitted by the NewJeans side. According to these messages, Hanni described the situation at the time: “Four of them came out of the styling room, and I heard their manager tell them to just pretend not to notice and pass by.” She added, “I don’t remember if those were the exact words, it was something roughly like that,” explaining that what she heard may not have been precise.

In response, former CEO Min repeatedly asked questions such as “Ignore, is that it?” “Did everyone ignore you?” “Did all the ILLIT members ignore you?” and “Did the manager tell them not to accept your greeting?” Hanni replied, “I’m not sure.”

ADOR’s legal counsel argued that “the former CEO escalated this into the ‘Ignore Her’ incident when Hanni herself said it wasn’t something to make a big deal about.” They further pointed out that “this issue being transformed into a reason for exclusive contract termination is nothing more than the fabrication of a false pretext.”