Soon after Taemin himself strongly denied rumors surrounding the launch of his very own clothing brand, his agency Big Planet Made issued a follow-up statement on August 23 KST.
According to the agency, "The rumors about Taemin launching his own clothing brand, spread via various online communities yesterday, are false. While preparing for the release of his 5th mini album 'Eternal', Taemin wished to treat fans to a special gift, and so he chose to design a t-shirt. This t-shirt is being handed out to fans who visit Taemin's comeback exhibit, which opened on August 22, through a lucky draw event."
Big Planet Made continued, "This merchandise was created by Taemin to express his gratitude to his fans, who supported him during his transition from one label to another. However, the company in charge of producing the t-shirt mistakenly posted about this product as a brand launched by Taemin, causing a misunderstanding. The t-shirt production company has relayed its apology to Taemin and the agency for this mistake, and promised that such a mistake would not happen again."
Finally, BPM emphasized, "Once again, we would like to clarify that Taemin has no plans to launch his own clothing brand. He promises to remain an artist whose only art is music."
Despite the agency's strongly worded statement, many netizens are responding with skepticism. Some believe that BPM and Taemin had already made significant progress toward the launch of the clothing brand, but due to the criticism it received yesterday for its high prices, the company quickly decided to "scrap" the project. Many are also finding it hard to believe that a unique website and an official SNS account were created "by mistake", as BPM claimed.
Netizens are commenting,
"They made an online shopping mall with its own unique address, made a brand logo, an official SNS account, and handed out QR codes leading to the shopping mall at the exhibition all by mistake? Who do they think they're fooling kekekeke."
"This company and the lies they spread. They take the public for fools."
"Apparently someone already hacked into the website and found a description calling it 'a brand founded by creative director Taemin'??"
"Seriously what is wrong with this company... People don't care that much if K-Pop idols do business, but for some reason they were so offended about the rumors getting out that they made Taemin lie just to save face."
"They really thought people would believe it if they just said, 'Oh, it was a mistake' after seeing all that info on the website."
"Because Taemin himself denied the rumors, the fans decided to just accept it and move on, but now this dumb company is out here announcing to the world what a cheap and terrible company Taemin just moved to lol."
"What's with the attitude of that statement anyway? He promises to remain an artist whose only art is music? Isn't that shading a lot of other artists who also have their own brands?"
"Everyone suspected that Taemin moving to BPM after SM was a major downgrade and now, the suspicions are 100% confirmed."