With the news of INFINITE's Dongwoo and Sungyeol leaving Woollim entertainment and INFINITE trending on melon, a Twitter thread by @jonggiezones exposing the years ofmistreatment INFINITE’s Sungjong, has been subjected to, has been brought to light.

Lee Sungjong is the youngest member of popular idol group INFINITE and is well-known for his bright and outgoing personality, soothing voice, and ethereal features. His famous line from a children’s drama – “When you have lots of thoughts, have a lemon candy” first brought attention to the member among wider audience and the group benefited from the recognition back in 2011. To this day, this line remains iconic!

Pic credit: @monodrama, @springflowers

Despite being talented and having a flair for variety shows, Sungjong has been systematically downplayed by the company, Woollim entertainment, for years now. Fans have expressed their displeasure regarding this injustice several times but have had no feedback from the company. To add to that, as the thread pointed out, Sungjong has also received abuse from netizens.

• Suppressing individuality

Sungjong became a variety show favourite when he showcased his enthusiastic and accurate covers of girl group dances. While the other members were in awe at how talented Sungjong is in that he would remember entire choreographies just after watching them a few times, he received a lot of negative comments from netizens.

Credit: @jonggiezones

As per Sungjong and the members of INFINITE themselves, the CEO ‘banned’ him from doing girl group dances on shows.

While companies do give directions to idol members to try and showcase their best to the fans, in this instance, the company had trampled on a major aspect of Sungjong’s persona, something even he admits he enjoys doing and gives him confidence.

• Unhealthy weight loss encouraged by the company

While idols are not foreigners to companies asking them to lose weight, Sungjong’s weight loss

journey was unimaginably unhealthy, perpetuated by the CEO’s comments, pushing him towards an eating disorder and creating emotional trauma for the idol.

Sungjong is known for his slim figure and ‘ant-waist’; despite this, he was pushed by the company to lose weight until he ate only one spoonful of food per day and dropped 10kg to 51kg. At 179 cm, this puts his BMI in the underweight category. He explained how he had to have IV drips and he didn’t have any energy to practice after constantly undereating.

• Lack of promotions and individual schedules

This is a recurring theme with Woollim entertainment, and Sungjong has been a repeated victim. Whether it is their lack of a marketing department (the CEO claiming he is the marketing department) or a lack of interest in their artists, fans have noticed that Woollim entertainment is not good at promoting or finding individual schedules for their artists (which, ironically, is their main job as an entertainment company).

Sungjong had been through several periods where he had nothing to do during off-times after

INFINITE’s promotions, despite his eagerness to try several things. This had significant impact on his mental health. Despite having recorded several solo songs, the company refused to promote him as a solo act. In fact, he had to resort to asking the fans to ask the CEO because he thought the CEO would listen more to the fans than him, the artist.

Credit: @jonggiezones

When he had (rightfully) asked the company for individual schedules, the CEO famously told

this idol in the 7th year of his career to “become a trainee again”. This lack of schedules is in no way is because Sungjong was not ‘in demand’ – he revealed that he had had many variety show offers that the company had simply refused. After appearing on variety shows such as Knowing Brothers and SNL Korea with IFNINITE, Sungjong was praised for his variety skills which led his name to trend on popular Korean sites.

Guess which show they did allow him to go on though – Real Men. They were probably hoping

that this would give him a more ‘manlier identity’, which brings us to the next point.

• Sexual identity and masculinity

Since debut, because of his feminine looks, soft voice, and girl group dance covers, Sungjong has been pointed out as being ‘potentially gay’ by netizens. While to most of the world, this has absolutely no negative connotation, to idols in a conservative industry like Kpop, such rumours can be severely damaging to their careers.

Not just netizens but when he attended a variety show, the hosts tried to insinuate that Sungjong was ‘too feminine’ or ‘gay’, including judging the way he spoke, the way he gestured, and putting words in his mouth. 

Sungjong himself has made no statement claiming that he is gay. These netizens have been harsh in their criticism of Sungjong’s ‘femininity’, which reached its peak when he was chosen as the ‘Celebrity A’ from a blind article that talked about a male gay idol member. It quickly grew viral in Korea, and while the company failed to do any type of damage control, it took its toll on Sungjong, causing him to break down in tears at one of their concerts.

Whether he is gay or not is not the issue – falsely assuming that he is, or, forcefully outing him, knowing it would have a detrimental effect to his life, however, is a big problem.

• Mental health

While there are lot more conversations nowadays about celebrity’s mental health and them being

perceived as human beings vulnerable to anxiety, depression, eating disorders etc, 2016 was a different story. The company lent no helping hand as Sungjong struggled with mental health problems, brought on by the lack of individual schedules, pressure to lose weight, persistent negative comments and defamation by netizens. It was severe enough for him to seek professional help and medicate. However, there was no statement from the company, no steps taken to remedy any of the causes of his stress.

Credit: @balloon_wanted

Credit: @jonggiezones

As for physical health, when Sungjong got into a car accident in 2017, there was no official  statement from Woollim entertainment and the news broke only when he was seen

performing a few days later while sitting down. 

Despite all this, Sungjong has continued to work hard, challenge new things, and smile for

fans. Sungjong is currently completing his mandatory military service. Back in 2016, Sungjong renewed his contract with Woollim entertainment, following the older members, in order to protect INFINITE and Inspirits. However, the company has failed him, and the netizens have let him down. We can only hope that going forward, Sungjong, who will be discharged from army in May, gets the justice he truly deserves.