Former Yellow Bee member Ari has accused the staff of Addiction Entertainment of sexual harassment and poor treatment.
On July 31, Addiction Entertainment announced the official disbandment of the girl group, citing one of the member's alleged "disorderly private life." Ari has now responded with a post on Instagram and refuted the label's claims. She wrote:
"Hello, this is Ari. I ask for your understanding even if this statement is a bit disorganized. I believe that since this issue has gotten bigger, I need to explain myself.
Our group isn't famous enough for explanations, but the articles about us are showing more interest in us than when we debuted. This kind of overwhelming interest confused us and spread even more stories.
The agency stated one of our members was [disorderly or promiscuous]. I don't know what the agency means by 'promiscuous.' Is it promiscuous if a man and woman just stand outside together? Are all people promiscuous? It is absolutely not true that she was promiscuous. This is something exaggerated by the agency. That member was not the one who engaged in promiscuous behavior. In fact, it would not be wrong to say it was the label that engaged in such behavior.
There were incidents of sexual harassment and assault from the managers and agency staff. A staff member tried to drag one of the members to the practice room to sleep with her. A lot of people were present at the time, but only the other members stopped him. There were also instances when they asked us to call them 'oppa' and touched our thighs. A former manager said unbelievable things like, 'I'll give you a baby, so let's go to a motel,' and 'Daddy's looking for you because he knows you.'
There were also several incidents in which they would call us at dawn and ask us to serve alcohol to supposed investors. We kept quiet and kept going because wanted to be singers. These incidents were really shocking at the time, and even now, they remain traumatic memories. Furthermore, we were never paid, and there were times when we had to pay for our costumes, shoes, and video editing ourselves.
We had to go to a Japanese event once. The CEO had to leave for the airport at 5AM, but he said he was the only one who could take us there. He took us to the Gimpo airport at 5AM, gave us a card, and told us to figure out our tickets ourselves. He then left us alone. We had never even bought airplane tickets before. Only our leader Ryuhee had a phone, so we had to contact various people in order to figure out how to get tickets. We had to get cheap tickets, so it took a long time. The takeoff time was 1PM, so we sat at Gimpo Airport for 8 hours. The tickets were for Incheon Airport, so we took all our clothes, album posters, and personal items to the Incheon Airport by ourselves and boarded the plane.
When we were in Japan, the 5 of us had to work alone without a single staff member. The people there knew our CEO had returned to Korea by himself. This is not promiscuous behavior, but we were not treated properly. This inappropriate treatment is why we said we would quit the group, not because of a member's promiscuous behavior. Everything I've written until now are only a few examples of the treatment we received.
From the beginning, we were at odds with the agency because of what they called our disorderly behavior. However, we ignored it and worked hard in order to achieve our debut, so it's ridiculous that they would use that as an excuse for our disbandment. This was included in the certification of content that we sent to the agency.
The agency is making us look bad, and we don't know how to respond. I've appointed myself as a representative to write this. Thank you for reading this long post."
What are your thoughts on Ari's accusations?
Oh I believe this wholeheartedly. I have heard enough to know that this kind of stuff absolutely does happen. Its very unfortunate. They take advantage of girls who just want to succeed. If you leave they try to wreck your reputation so you find it hard to get new representation
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