Min Hee-jin claims HYBE offered her money to leave; South Korean entertainment giant say she’s lying

Min Hee-jin (in baseball cap) claimed that HYBE offered to pay her to leave the company.  — Image courtesy of ADOP

By Malay Mail

Thursday, 26 Sep 2024 11:47 AM MYT

SEOUL, Sept 26 — Former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin has claimed that entertainment giants HYBE offered her money to leave the company.

In an exclusive interview with JoongAng Ilbo the 44-year-old producer had claimed that, “After the court approved my injunction request to prevent my dismissal at the extraordinary board meeting in May, HYBE offered me money to leave the company. However, because my objective in this was not money, I refused.

“The core of this dispute has nothing to do with anything so grandiose as the growth of the company or improvement of the existing system. It is nothing more than a public execution ordered by the chairman of a parent company who felt emotionally offended by a subsidiary company.”

She said that HYBE further attempted to “distort the truth” about the success of NewJeans in Japan and “sent articles slandering her reputation to overseas journalists.”

HYBE however have been quick to respond to Hee-jin.

In a statement, it denied ever rejecting her money, an internal audit was launched based on reliable evidence and was not ‘illegally ordered’.

It also said that Hee-jin and ADOR had more freedom from HYBE interference and received more funding, support, quality treatment, and promotional assistance than any other sub-label, which proved it did not violate its promise to not interfere.

The company also denied ever sending articles to overseas journalists slandering her, and that in regards to the correction articles on NewJeans’ album sales, HYBE only intended to clarify that the certification rewarded by the Recording Industry Association of Japan was based on the number of albums shipped, not the number of albums sold.

Yesterday, the ADOR board of directors in an emergency general meeting decided that Hee-jin will continue as an internal director who will produce the group’s material for the next five years — effectively until the end of NewJeans’ contract but denied the girl group’s demands for the return of their former CEO in that position.