🔗 2025-03-07 Ilgan Sports, “An ILLIT Member Ignored Hanni? And ADOR Revealed It?” [Jeon Hyeong-hwa’s Direct Writing]

Did an ILLIT Member Ignore Hanni? And ADOR Disclosed This? [Jeon Hyung-hwa’s Column]

Did an ILLIT member ignore NewJeans’ (NJZ) Hanni through words and actions?

On the 7th, as the group NewJeans (NJZ) and ADOR clashed in court over the contract termination dispute, new evidence that neither side had previously disclosed was submitted. Among these, what stands out is newly raised content related to the so-called “Ignore her” statement by ILLIT’s manager—the incident that led NewJeans (NJZ) member Hanni to testify at the National Assembly audit—and significant repercussions are expected.

On the morning of this day, a hearing was held at the 50th Civil Division of the Seoul Central District Court regarding the injunction application filed by ADOR against the five NewJeans (NJZ) members seeking preservation of agency status and prohibition of advertising contract signing. The five NewJeans (NJZ) members attended court in person wearing matching black outfits, and ADOR CEO Kim Joo-young was also present.

Amid the sharp confrontation between both sides, what drew attention was the CCTV footage disclosed by ADOR. ADOR released CCTV footage from May 27, 2024 in court and distributed it to the media after the hearing. The footage shows three ILLIT members entering the hallway while bowing 90 degrees to Hanni, and also bowing 90 degrees to NewJeans (NJZ) member Danielle as she walks by.

ADOR then stated that “since the CCTV footage does not have audio recording capability, it is impossible (to confirm) the claim that the ‘Ignore her’ statement was made.”

What is puzzling is that the CCTV footage ADOR disclosed in court that day is not the footage of the moment when Hanni claims she heard the ILLIT manager say “Ignore her.”

During an emergency live broadcast in September of last year, Hanni said, “I was alone in the hallway when a manager from another team and (the members) passed by, and I greeted them. And when they came back, that manager said ‘Ignore her’ right in front of me so I could hear everything,” adding, “Even thinking about it now, I don’t understand why I had to experience such a thing.”

Subsequently, at the National Assembly audit in October, she stated, “After directly checking the CCTV, they said there was 8 seconds of footage showing the greeting beforehand, but the scene 5-10 minutes later (when I heard the ‘Ignore her’ statement) was completely missing,” and “I watched it with two people, a security guard and the head of security, and when I asked why the later part was missing, the reason kept changing. They made verbal slips and said the footage had been deleted.”

In other words, the CCTV footage released by ADOR that day is the 8-second footage that Hanni said she directly confirmed, showing her greeting the ILLIT members before the incident in question. Hanni said she greeted the ILLIT members when entering the room, and that she heard the problematic “Ignore her” statement from the ILLIT manager when the ILLIT members came out of the room—yet the footage ADOR released in court that day was of the greeting.

Additionally, ADOR disclosed in court the KakaoTalk messages between Hanni and former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin that had been submitted by the NewJeans (NJZ) side. In those messages, Hanni wrote to former CEO Min, “I heard (the ILLIT manager) tell them to just pretend not to know and pass by” and “I don’t remember if those were the exact words, it was something roughly like that.” ADOR highlighted in red the relevant portion and the part where the former CEO responded “Ignore. Is that it?”

Regarding this, ADOR’s 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,” and pointed out that “this issue being transformed into a reason for exclusive contract termination is nothing more than the fabrication of a false pretext.”

The problem is that the full KakaoTalk conversation between Hanni and former CEO Min Hee-jin that ADOR disclosed in court and distributed to the media that day contains the following statement from Hanni: “That manager didn’t look at me at all, and one (ILLIT) member kept looking at that manager and said ‘Yes, yes, I’ll just pretend not to know,’ something like that.”

Furthermore, in the full KakaoTalk messages distributed by ADOR, while the part where former CEO Min asked Hanni “Did the manager tell them not to accept your greeting?” was marked in red, the messages also contain Hanni’s response afterward: “One of them kind of vaguely greeted me while avoiding eye contact, and the last one greeted me but seemed really nervous about it.”

In other words, Hanni’s claim that one of the ILLIT members said “Yes, yes” and “I’ll just pretend not to know” in response to the manager’s instruction to just pretend not to know and pass by was revealed directly through ADOR’s disclosure.

Until now, the claim that an ILLIT member took such an attitude toward Hanni during the “Ignore her” controversy was first disclosed through ADOR’s release of the Hanni-former CEO Min KakaoTalk messages in court that day.

On the other hand, in the materials that the NewJeans (NJZ) side disclosed in court that day and later distributed to the media, they redacted the part about what the ILLIT member allegedly said in Hanni’s KakaoTalk messages. The NewJeans (NJZ) side stated: “The BELIFT LAB manager said something to the effect of ‘Ignore and pass by’ to other artists in front of Respondent Hanni. Three other artist members then passed by without greeting Respondent Hanni. Additionally, some members mocked the Respondent through words and actions.” The NewJeans (NJZ) side did not specify what actions and words the ILLIT member directed at Hanni, but ultimately it was ADOR that disclosed this.

Both ADOR and NewJeans (NJZ) interpreted the KakaoTalk messages differently, and regardless of how the court will receive this, it is a significant problem that ADOR’s disclosure of the full KakaoTalk conversation revealed without filter the claim that an ILLIT member said “Yes, yes, I’ll pretend not to know” to Hanni.

Moreover, when ADOR’s 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,” this was not a denial of the fact itself but rather a claim that Hanni said she was fine with such a fact. Furthermore, the fact that ADOR did not deny that an ILLIT member said such things to Hanni is no small matter.

BELIFT LAB CEO Kim Tae-ho previously said in a media interview, “Especially when the ‘Ignore her incident’ broke out, the members were so shocked. The members know the facts exactly, don’t they? They asked why things had to go this far. Did the CEO do something wrong? What did they do wrong?” The claims made by ADOR’s counsel that day are at odds with BELIFT LAB CEO Kim Tae-ho’s interview.

Incidentally, on the afternoon of that day, a hearing was held at the Seoul Western District Court for the approximately 2 billion won damages lawsuit filed by BELIFT LAB against former CEO Min Hee-jin, claiming damages from defamation and obstruction of business.

One cannot help but wonder how BELIFT LAB will respond to these facts that were revealed through ADOR counsel’s disclosure that day.