As it happened — ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin press conference

 
Min Hee-jin, producer of girl group NewJeans and CEO of the quintet’s agency, ADOR, met with press on Thursday afternoon in southern Seoul, seven hours after HYBE said it would report her to the police for breach of trust.

Photo journalists take close-up photos of ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin as she sits down for her press conference Thursday in southern Seoul. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
The press conference came after HYBE announced that it found “solid evidence” that Min had attempted to conspire against HYBE and ordered staff to gather hostile information about the BTS agency.
 
Korea JoongAng Daily will be covering the conference, which is set to begin at 3 p.m., live.
 
3:05 p.m. “I want to speak candidly today. I’m not a celebrity, so the sounds of the cameras are difficult for me,” Min Hee-jin says. “Please, could you turn off the flash? I can’t speak with all these lights pointed at me. Please stop.”
 
3:06 p.m. “I’m telling you to leave, but this is just so difficult for me right now,” Min says.
 
3:08 p.m. “We have a lot to say today,” reporters are told. “Important things will be discussed, so we ask that you please stop taking photos for now.”
 
3:11 p.m. “I have become involved in a lot of rumors, in tandem with NewJeans’ new music,” Min says. “I…” Min sighs. “I wanted to tell my story after NewJeans’ music. I was not expecting the audit at all. It began so suddenly on Monday. HYBE is going forward with a public relations strategy stronger than it does with its artists. I have become a witch. My top priority is to clear my name, and the second is to reveal the truth of what happened. It will be a long event today because the ways I and HYBE perceive the situation are very different.”
 
3:13 p.m. “It’s difficult for me to speak in an interview, even in a nice environment,” Min goes on. “But seeing the photo reporters, it feels like you don’t treat me like a person. I keep thinking, ‘Do they want me to die? Will people be happy if I die?’ I don’t check the comments because that would kill me. I don’t think anyone would have been bombarded with such press releases in such a short amount of time. I believe I’m innocent. I don’t know what you think, but I wanted to focus on NewJeans.”
 
3:15 p.m. Min turns to the accusations. “I did not expect that such attention would be focused on me. I never expected that they would monitor my KakaoTalk chats and want to kill me. I am eager to speak, so it would be strange for me not to. I resorted to holding this event at such a short notice. They’re hitting me with the ‘management seize’ frame, but I just cannot agree. I know that’s what you read, but when I speak about the plagiarism issue, it’s like people dismiss me and think I’m talking about something completely different.”
 
3:16 p.m. Min addresses the laptop issue. “They took the vice CEO’s laptop and took the conversations that I had. For me, this feels like the greatest scam of all. I know I’m the sinner in your eyes. But HYBE CEO Park Ji-won, who used to be so close to me until lately, and everyone else who attacks me right now, has me thinking, ‘What started all this?’”
 
3:17 p.m. Min details her own actions. “I made an internal report, which I hoped would be addressed formally by the company. So many things have stemmed from there, so there are stories that I wanted to tell. I’ve been living in hell for the past two days. I’ve ironically come to realize that I have a lot of friends. It’s allowed me to look back on my life. But going back to the beginning, it should never have become such a serious thing.”
 
3:18 p.m. Min turns to address HYBE’s executives. “The things that I talked about comfortably with Park Ji-won have made me ‘the grumpy old woman.’ The things that I’ve been saying with my vice CEO are just things that we discussed out of intimacy. Yes, some things went over the line, but it’s because the conversations have been rid of the context of where they came from. If someone framed you a certain way and edited your own conversations, it would be so easy to make a new story out of it.”
 

3:19 p.m. “I have always been the person who has to break the given frame. That was the difficult thing about my work and life. But I have been so desperate these past few days on whether this is right,” Min continues, describing her own mental state. “I’ve actually not been happy, even though NewJeans was successful. And people asked me whether I was.”
 
3:20 p.m. The conference turns to girl group NewJeans. “But even when NewJeans told me they loved me and thanked me like their parent, I have never agreed with people suspecting me or thinking that I love NewJeans like a fan. I never liked the idol culture. My goal has always been to make my work in a clean, confident way. That’s been my focus and it’s been difficult for me to talk about the things that interfered with my work. I just can’t agree with HYBE saying that I did all this because of money. Everything that HYBE is saying is a lie. I’ve never said BTS copied me.”
 

Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR, asks photo journalists to turn off their flashlights. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
3:22 p.m. Min directly addresses HYBE. “They said that I said something ‘along the lines of’ BTS copying me, which has worked to build up a certain frame against me,” referring to recent claims that the ADOR executive emulated the work of previous K-pop bands for NewJeans. “That’s built up to people believing that I don’t deserve NewJeans and was trying to take over HYBE. But I really want to ask, how can they do this to me? Why would they make this very strange person? I have not been sleeping. I almost collapsed coming here. I know that this may be the last chance for me to speak out like this. I joined Big Hit Entertainment as the chief brand officer, not Source Music. I have never tried to hijack control of ADOR. As an employee, you complain about your job and your boss.”
 
3:24 p.m. Min denies HYBE’s claims that she attempted to seize control of ADOR. “I have no idea where the ‘usurper’ frame came from. We just said these things and said, ‘HYBE has 80 percent of the company.’ You have to know all the stories to understand all this.” 
 
3:26 p.m. Min’s attorney Lee Sook-mi takes the stage. “It just cannot be a breach of trust. When you say ‘breach of trust,’ it’s when an action actually leads to damaging the company. There was no incident where Min tried to diminish the company value,” the attorney says. “You cannot ‘plot’ to breach trust. This just doesn’t count as that. I’m actually looking forward to the report they’re filing to the police.”
 
3:27 p.m. Min speaks again. “It’s not me that turned my back on HYBE, it’s HYBE that betrayed me. It used me to the fullest and now wants to take me down because I don’t listen to them. No one has done what I have done during the 30 years in K-pop. But HYBE is trying to kill someone who’s done what I have as the head of a subsidiary. When I quit SM Entertainment, that was also followed by rumors that I turned my back on them. You have to know that I am a strange person. I left SM Entertainment because [SM founder] Lee Soo-man thought that I was smart. It was difficult but I worked hard.”
 
3:29 p.m. Min continues discussing her experience at SM Entertainment. “I tried to expand my work and didn’t quit even though it was hard. But his work and mindset changed with time and I became disappointed. But I always told him, ‘I’ll tell you this because I think of you as my father.’ At the end, I told him that I would leave him because I want to do something new, and SM Entertainment was not the place where I could make it happen. He asked me whether I wanted to take some time off then lead a new label or a place at SM Entertainment. But I never wanted an executive place. That wasn’t my goal. They didn’t let me go for three months. Then I just quit.”
 
3:30 p.m. Min turns to the industry as a whole. “I’ve been fed up with the long-lasting ails of the K-pop industry. But it was that I was good at my work, rather than that I liked it. I held on because of the achievements that I’d made. But just two days later, I got a call from a headhunter. They told me ‘someone’ wanted to see me but didn’t tell me who. It was [HYBE founder] Bang Si-hyuk. The person who attacks me now, as if it’s ok for me to kill myself, I don’t want to talk badly about them. I don’t want to talk trash. I’m just saying what I’ve been experiencing.”
 
3:32 p.m. “Can we see the data please?” Min asks, and then turns on the screen behind her revealing screenshots. “Bang Si-hyuk told me that ‘I became the successful fan,’” she continues, referring to the period of time before she’d accepted her role at HYBE. “‘I’ll treat you better than a board member.’ He told me that I wanted to fulfill my creative potential. I was thankful and I told him that I wouldn’t let him down. He told me to build the ‘Min Hee-jin world.’ I thought that we could create a synergy together.
 
3:34 p.m. Min continues discussing HYBE’s leader. “What I wanted to do at first was HYBE branding, turning the Big Hit Entertainment company into a holding company. I also took on the making of a girl group because he said that he wasn’t confident in making a girl group. I took it on knowing that it would be a lot of work. He promised me full support, but there wasn’t a label called ADOR.”

Min Hee-jin, producer of girl group NewJeans and CEO of ADOR, unveils past KakaoTalk chats with HYBE Chairman Bang Si-hyuk during a press conference Thursday in southern Seoul. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
3:35 p.m. Min turns to HYBE boy band BTS. “It was before HYBE bought Source Music. Bang Si-hyuk was the chairman of HYBE. What he suggested was that BigHit has more fans because of BTS. ‘We needed to make a new girl group label, so let’s buy Source Music. They have trainees, so why don’t we use them to debut a new girl group?’ I said no at first. But I wanted to be cooperative because I had just moved to the new company.”
 
3:37 p.m. “I’m the kind of person who has to start everything from scratch, but I thought that I would bend to his will,” Min says. “I know that it would have been best for me to spend my own money and make a label. The reason I joined the company was that it had a set system. The family, the employees, it was easier for me to pay them. But if you make a new company, you inevitably become poor. But I wanted to fulfill my potential. It wasn’t about making money. Getting investors involved would’ve been so difficult for me as a woman. I’ve seen so many dirty things. So I thought, ‘Let’s just join a company and get paid.’ I had always felt alone. We didn’t see eye to eye. Bang Si-hyuk wanted to benchmark Billie Eilish, but I wasn’t sure. Then Covid-19 came. It became so difficult. Source Music had GFriend. Disbanding that group had nothing to do with me. Let me just emphasize that.”
 
3:39 p.m. Min continues discussing Source Music, the HYBE subsidiary behind girl group Le Sserafim. “I have never been at Source Music. I don’t make friends at work. I don’t go to company outings. So even if they had trainees at Source Music — excuse me for going here and there — there was no one other than Minji that I could recruit.”

3:40 p.m. “Source Music wasn’t a well-branded company, and HYBE wasn’t even branded back then,” Min continues. “So what HYBE told me was ‘Min Hee-jin girl group, lets intrigue people with that.’ And what would a girl group from the BTS agency look like? HYBE said that people would become curious. I began branding an audition starting from there. I had to brand the whole thing because there was no other group for people to see. Hanni was the first person who we cast with the new branded idea.”
 
3:42 p.m. Min details the formation of ADOR girl group NewJeans. “There were a lot of applicants, but not many that we could cast. The other three trainees were cast after we started another round under the motto ‘BTS’s girl group.’ Danielle, Haerin then Hyein joined us. I had control because I was in charge of the creative work. There were trainees other than the NewJeans members, but I pushed through because I thought they would be a good fit.”
 
3:44 p.m. “Anyway, Covid-19 came. [Bang] Si-hyuk and I started thinking differently,” Min recalls. “[Bang] Si-hyuk said that he didn’t know what to say, but I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do. [Bang] Si-hyuk didn’t really like it. There were differences, but the moment that it fell apart was…HYBE really needs to look back on its actions. How could you treat me like this?’ What angers me so much is in June, or July, in 2021, soon after Park Ji-won joined a young company from a game company, he wanted to become close to me, so we became friends. We’re similar ages, too. Ji-won and [Source Music Founder So] Sung-jin said that HYBE’s first girl group would have to be a new girl group from Source Music with Sakura and [Kim] Chae-won. I swore at them, saying, ‘Are you out of your minds?’ The trainees all came to me because it was going to be a Min Hee-jin girl group, not a Source Music girl group. I never knew that they were recruiting Sakura and Kim Chae-won, but then they said they were debuting that group first. I said I was going to quit and open a press conference. Park Ji-won asked me what he could do to make up for the situation.”
 
3:47 p.m. Min continues discussing tensions around the debut of Source Music girl group Le Sserafim. “There’s a time for everything, and you never explained all this to the members and their parents, I told him. They never apologized to the parents. The parents were so angry. They blamed Source Music because they were afraid that [NewJeans] might not debut because of the Source Music girl group. I didn’t want to turn my back on the trainees because I would be abandoning them. They didn’t even let me see the girls.”
 
3:48 p.m. “I told them that I’d take these girls because I wanted to help them debut. I wasn’t stealing them.” Min goes on. “I thought that making ADOR would be for the good of the girls and the shareholders. But Bang Si-hyuk said that he wouldn’t let me do it unless the company held a 100 percent stake. But it was my branding and my creation. But I don’t understand why Park Ji-won tried to bridge the gap between me and Bang Si-hyuk.”
 
3:50 p.m. Min breaks down into tears while she details escalating tensions between herself and HYBE’s higher-ups. “A fight would’ve taken months, so I just said O.K. to the shares of the company after three months. I said that I felt like I was giving birth, and I really did. It would’ve been disgusting for me to say all this to the children, but I did tell the parents because they, too, were angry at HYBE. We had so much to say to HYBE. Then Park Ji-won came to us and told us not to promote NewJeans before Le Sserafim’s debut, because they wanted people to think that Le Sserafim was Min Hee-jin’s girl group.”
 
3:52 p.m. “It didn’t make sense, but everything had begun, so I had no choice but to say yes and just prove it in the ways that I could,” Min continues, openly weeping. “Bang Si-hyuk asked me, ‘You can beat aespa in December, right?’ But that was never my goal.” Min stands up. “I thought that he was a really generous person, but I found that he was different on the outside from how he was on the inside. I know that I look weird to him. He suddenly asked me, after NewJeans released ‘Ditto,’ ‘Are you happy? Why are you laughing? I want to know.’ Why wouldn’t I have been happy? Doesn’t the conversation seem really weird? Our relationship had changed.”
 
3:54 p.m. Min begins pointing at a screenshot of text messages from Park Ji-won projected onto the wall behind her. “‘When the hell can we start promoting NewJeans? The reason that we separated the company was because they broke the promise and debuted Sakura first.’ I went on ‘You Quiz [on the Block]’ because this was what I wanted to say.”
 
3:56 p.m. Min continues displaying text messages behind her. “This doesn’t make sense. It’s like you’re telling us that you’ll meddle with our business and you want to see us do it all by ourselves. They expected nothing from us, and that’s how I made NewJeans. It’s like the stepsisters are bullying me, but I will win.”

Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR, tears up while speaking during a press conference held Wednesday in southern Seoul. The conference was held seven hours after HYBE said it would report her to the police for breach of trust. [NEWS1]

 
3:57 p.m. “Park Ji-won told me that I shouldn’t say that NewJeans is a completely new team, because they wanted to confuse people,” Min continues, still standing. “Isn’t this the true breach of trust, trying to diminish the value of a subsidiary? It’s like, just pushing the higher-ups. They never let me promote NewJeans as the first girl group from Min Hee-jin because they intentionally wanted to confuse people. That was all Bang Si-hyuk’s doing.”
 
 

Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR, tears up while speaking during a press conference Thursday in southern Seoul. The conference was held seven hours after HYBE said it would report her to the police for breach of trust. [NEWS1]

 
3:59 p.m. Min continues detailing her experiences with HYBE’s management. “Park Ji-won was told by someone, probably Bang Si-hyuk, to say all the things that he did. He’s just doing his best as a paid employee. Park said ‘Lets just push the announcement.’ I asked him whether he wanted me to lie. He asked me to ‘give him some room.’ Then he kept asking me to ‘match’ the Le Sserafim press release. Is this North Korea? He said, ‘I’m just asking you as a person. It’s not North Korea.’ Just tell him, Bang Si-hyuk, that I’m going forward with my plan because I’m the crazy bitch. He asked me not to promote NewJeans. Is this really what should’ve happened? They went against common sense every single day.”
 
4:01 p.m. “I told them, ‘You are weird people. Do I owe you anything? I’ll do what I have to,’” a sobbing Min continues. “When the investor relations team called me ‘the best creator’ in a memo, they told the team to get rid of ‘the best.’ It changed from the moment they first hired me. I didn’t want to lie, but he kept telling me that it was his job to ‘guide’ me. We used to make jokes to each other. But now, I want to ask why they want to kick me out. When did I ever ‘ask’ BTS to go to the military?”
 
4:03 p.m. Min turns to recent allegations that she was coached by a shaman. “I asked [the shaman] because I was just so curious. How were we to plan our steps if the company’s ace team was going to the military or not? I’m going to report HYBE for privacy infringement. They’re censoring my messages. She is my friend. Can I not have a shaman friend?”
 
4:04 p.m. Min continues discussing her shaman friend. “I had to get therapy because of HYBE,” she said. “But if someone there listened to me — that was why I went to her. Don’t you sometimes go? Don’t you see the things that you’ve been doing? I’m sure they’re making these attacks because they’re worse in that way.”
 
4:05 p.m. Min, brandishing the remote control, addresses HYBE’s leadership directly. “I asked Park Ji-won, were they not ashamed of all this? Park Ji-won answered, ‘Revenge comes after success.’ This means that he agreed that what they were doing was wrong. Bang Si-hyuk, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? If I were to cut this bit of the conversation, then Park Ji-won would be the one trying to seize control. I messaged the parents that I was doing all this because NewJeans just feels like my baby. They really do. They’ve been calling me and crying at night telling me that they feel so sorry for me.”
 
4:07 p.m. Min, sobbing, scrolls through more text messages on the screen. “The mother of a member called me and said that I should tell my story because I’m being witch-hunted. They knew that HYBE was trying to make me the witch and Source Music the victim. I would not have made an internal report if it were about money. I can make 100 billion won [$72.8 million] without doing any of this. I’m doing this because I have to speak out. This is me. This is why I’m going through all this. Why would a mother say this? Why can I not be protected? Why do I have to be used by Park Ji-won, by Bang Si-hyuk? I did everything that I could. Everyone who’s worked with me knows how I work. Do I look like such a person to you?”
 
4:09 p.m. “We have two vice CEOs, and one of them is really playful,” Min says, shaking her head. “They just take memos. That’s what they wrote, because they knew that I was suffering because of HYBE. I have a weird shareholder’s contract with HYBE. I can’t reveal the details. But…”
 
4:10 p.m. “From early this year, we’re working on the details because there are unfair terms in the contract,” Min’s attorney Timothy SK Lee cuts in. “We cannot say what they are because of the confidentiality clause.”
 
4:11 p.m. “This is the weird thing. I can’t say what I’m suffering from,” Min continues. “The contradiction in the contract is that the 5 percent, of the 20 percent that I had and the 2 percent I gave to the staff, I can’t sell. It’s like a slave contract. I have to be bound to HYBE forever.”
 
4:12 p.m. “She’s saying some things that could be misunderstood,” Min’s lawyer Timothy SK Lee says.
 
4:13 p.m. Min, unperturbed, presses on. “I do have a business mind. But I majored in art, so I don’t know the contract terms. It’s confusing. So a venture capitalist friend, who I know, I asked what happened with the 5 percent, and that’s how I got in contact with [law firm] Kim & Shin. Then HYBE turned that into me ‘consulting an outside consultant.’ But what on earth did I discuss with an investor? I could never leave HYBE, should things go there. They could starve me to death. See how they copied ILLIT? But this is my personal thought. I trusted them and signed the contract. That’s how I got into this mess.”
 
4:14 p.m. Attorney Timothy SK Lee takes over again. “You shouldn’t discuss this here.”
 
4:14 p.m. “But I really want to say it,” Min retorts. 
 
4:15 p.m. “We’re renegotiating the terms,” attorney Timothy SK Lee continues. “We have different interests, but the vice CEO did say things because they were frustrated.”
 
4:15 p.m. Min’s tirade turns to claims that she’d considered Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in an alleged bid to seize control. “We were just messing about when we mentioned the Saudi Arabia fund. Would that even be possible? Sorry, I’m just like this. They are manipulating the conversations because it’s just so nonsensical. It’s all about honor for me. They know that I care about honor, and they used that against me when I made NewJeans, and I can’t abandon them. Park Ji-won, you really need to look back on your actions, if you’re watching this. Park Ji-won, you acted like you were my friend, then you went to Bang Si-hyuk. He asked me to trust him.”
 
4:17 p.m. Timothy SK Lee adds, “You will all know that seizing control would be impossible. ADOR is doing so well financially, so it would be impossible. We have not been refuting because it doesn’t make sense to.”
 
4:18 p.m. “I didn’t stay silent because I’m dumb,” Min says. “It’s like Solomon’s baby. I’m the mother. Does HYBE really care about NewJeans? NewJeans releases something tomorrow, and they do this? They’re doing the shaman frame because they couldn’t find any dirt on my company card. The only thing I bought was dinner for my late-night works.”
 
4:18 p.m. “HYBE knew that the music video was launching,” Min’s attorney Timothy SK Lee clarifies. “They could have been shocked, but why would they just go ahead with releasing it straight away? Do they really have the best interests of NewJeans at heart?”
 
4:19 p.m. Min again. “This is so lowly. See them releasing the press release just before the press conference? There are so many bastards in this industry. I need to vent. You’re depressed now, Park Ji-won? I’ve been depressed for 10 years.”
 
4:20 p.m. Min returns to the topic of HYBE’s Park Ji-won, displaying more text exchanges with the executive. “Park Ji-won agreed that Bang Si-hyuk bullied me. This is all on him. He tried to exploit me. I listened to Park Ji-won because I respected him. But had they captured this conversation, then this would also have been used against me. I’ve become a psycho in the past three days.”
 
4:21 p.m. “Why can’t I say what I want? Why didn’t they just come to me and ask me all this?” Min laments. “They hated me and wanted to kill me for making the internal report.”
 
4:22 p.m. HYBE executives’ salaries come up. “They keep silent to look good to their bosses,” Min says. “They said that they gave me 5 billion won, but I only got 2 billion won. Park Ji-won got 1 billion won despite the minus at his company. Why does he get more? I did all this in this barren land. Was HYBE really treating me right? I said that I couldn’t trust them after what they did to NewJeans despite their success. How can I trust them?”
 
4:24 p.m. Min points again to the text exchange projected behind her. “Was I a fool for believing Park Ji-won when he asked me to trust him?” she asks. 
 
4:25 p.m. “I forgot Park Tae-hee,” Min says, referring to HYBE’s chief creative officer. “Wow, the press. Please put all that effort into your artists. I’ve become the victim of libel and false rumors. It’s similar stories from here onward.”
 
4:27 p.m. Min returns to HYBE’s legal allegations against her. “If you try to kill a subsidiary that’s doing well, that’s breach of trust. That’s going against shareholders’ rights.”
 
4:28 p.m. “I tried to say things nicely,” Min says. “I told them not to mess with my VPs [vice presidents]. I never pass on a fight to others. I fight for them. I’ve been offered so many places, even during my time here. I got calls from investors on the second and third day of this whole thing, even though I thought that my reputation had been ruined.”
 
4:29 p.m. “You have to understand that she didn’t plot anything,” Min’s lawyer Timothy SK Lee adds. 
 
4:30 p.m. “I’m just saying that I’ve been getting calls for investment,” Min plows on. “It’s a crazy world where everyone will do everything for money. I did all this, and 16 billion won?” Min’s attorney cuts her off. “I know that I could be misunderstanding them in some way, but after two and three years, then the suspicions became real,” Min goes on after a measured pause. 
 
4:31 p.m. “A capable woman and capable man got married and had pretty children,” Min’s attorney Lee Sook-Mi explains matter-of-factly. “They have a test ahead and they tried to make it work through a deal, like a shareholder’s deal. Then, she just received divorce papers. Then, they revealed the divorce papers. And the children have a test ahead. This is the situation and why Min Hee-jin is so worked up. But wouldn’t you say things and imagine things during the divorce? The things that have been said are being exaggerated.”
 
4:33 p.m. “I’m just really bad with my words,” Min says. “But I have so many things inside me. I felt so sad because of the photo reporters. They wanted to get an image of me looking so bad. Is this how celebrities feel? How can they treat me like this?”
 
4:34 p.m. Time for questions. “What was the internal report?” OBS asks Min. 
 
4:35 p.m. “I wanted HYBE to pull themselves together,” Min responds. “But I’ll see how things go and release it later. It was me saying, ‘If you have something to say, then come and fight me fairly.’”
 
4:35 p.m. “There are things that we can’t disclose at this moment,” Min’s lawyer Timothy SK Lee adds. “But we wanted to make a change internally, so we only notified the executives. But at this moment, it’s hard to reveal anything.
 
4:36 p.m. “Are you going to hold the shareholders meeting on April 30?” JTBC asks. “Will the music video be revealed tomorrow?”
 
4:37 p.m. “Yes,” Min says. “Why do we need to be damaged because of HYBE? I want to sue HYBE. They told me to hand in my laptop yesterday then disclosed a different date from others. They’re lawyers from Kim & Chang. I’m just a normal person from art school. How can I tell my story? It’s only HYBE stories that are getting out. But I’m so grateful for everyone who helped me along the way, including reporters. How can they treat me like this after everything that I have done? The only thing I can appeal to is sincerity.”
 
4:38 p.m. “I wish that this public relations culture would change,” Min continues. “Please, I wish reporters would listen to the stories of the little ones. Please write the stories of the little ones. It’s so unfair, and I didn’t even know how to play this game. Keep an eye out if they promote NewJeans like the way they’re doing it now.”
 
4:39 p.m. “Regarding the shareholders meeting, we cannot harm the groups’ schedules,” Min’s attorney Timothy SK Lee says. “We’re going to proceed with everything. There is nothing decided regarding the shareholders’ meeting because the situation is so complicated.”
 
4:40 p.m. “Did Bang Si-hyuk ask to see you?” MTN asks. “No,” Min replies. “Did you ask to meet him?” MTN asks. “Park Ji-won is in the middle, and I’m sorry to say this, but it’s like how married couples don’t want to see each other before their divorce. Our relationship worsened because of Le Sserafim. I’m sorry, but we never met afterward.”
 
4:41 p.m. “The multilabel independence, it is not being kept well?” MTN asks, referring to HYBE’s somewhat unique setup in which a number of subsidiary labels are given quite a bit of autonomy over their artists and operations.
 
4:41 p.m. “I’m not trashing anyone, but it comes down to governance,” Min says. “There’s a shared function from the central system, like HR [human resources] and IT [information technology]. Labels could differ with their ideas in some way, but HYBE still wants to control the labels and make things easy. Each label needs to keep its uniqueness, like with ILLIT. I’m not talking trash about them. They’re innocent, the members — it’s the adults that have sinned. They just copied all the formulas that we had with NewJeans. It’s obvious that ADOR will compare us to what they did. They should never have gone with the multilabel [system] and should’ve just done what SM and YG do. When someone copies someone and does it well, it brings everyone down. It brings the whole industry down. It damages shareholder value. I don’t care about being cursed at, but I feel relieved that I can talk about everything today. Everything needs to change.”
 
4:45 p.m. “The reason we don’t have photo cards but do random gifts — please, if you have pictures of every celebrity, it becomes a dictionary,” Min goes on. “Album prices don’t go up but production cost does. If we don’t make random gifts, people compare each member’s popularity. That’s why we don’t make them. I don’t like random gifts, either. I wanted to compete fairly with content. I micromanage because that’s taking responsibility. I wish the other companies would stop doing that. You mess up the market if you do this. Then it also messes with the stock market. NewJeans also wants to hold an autograph event for NewJeans. But I think that it’s only right to hold it only when the members want to. But what pisses me off about HYBE is that it takes credit for NewJeans. That goes against ethics, and they don’t even respect the consumers.”
 
4:47 p.m. Min’s tirade continues. “I know I look crazy, but I don’t act elegant. I’m tender inside — that’s why I’m [expletive] saying all this. There’s no one like me in this industry. Only people who make money make more money. But I wish people with some sort of ideology would lead the industry, not just people who are crazy about making money.”
 
4:48 p.m. “What is your response to HYBE’s demand for you to step down?” Yonhap asks. “How are the members?”
 
4:50 p.m. “It’s so difficult,” Min answers. “NewJeans and I have something more than what you would know. They always tell me that they thank me and love me. Hanni told me that she’d come over to me. Haerin is usually like a cat and doesn’t speak a lot, but she called me and told me that she couldn’t come up with the words to text me. She said that she just wanted to hear my voice. Haerin cried for 20 whole minutes” Min bursts into tears. “She told me that she thanks me so much because I helped her through hard times. She said that she wants to tell everyone what happened. The members’ mothers are so worried that I’m going to kill myself. But why would I? I’m going to say everything that I have in my heart. Do you know what Park Ji-won said to the mothers? He said that he’s not going to talk to them, just to ADOR. And they say that they care about NewJeans? I don’t care whether they sue me for libel.”
 
 

Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR, cries as she speaks during a press conference held Thursday in southern Seoul. [NEWS1]

4:52 p.m. “What’s going to happen in the future?” Min is asked. “It’s difficult for us to go together, but I’m not interested in taking control. HYBE did all this. It’s not my effort to take NewJeans,” ADOR’s CEO answers. “How can they do this to me with [New Jeans’] Tokyo Dome concert coming up? We have a plan until the end of the year, and HYBE is acting like it doesn’t care, because NewJeans has nothing planned without me, and it’s acting like it doesn’t care.”
 
4:53 p.m. Min is asked if she plans to break her contract with HYBE. “No, not at all,” she says. “How could you ask me that? The reason I came forward today is because NewJeans content comes out tomorrow. I knew that if I didn’t say anything today then people would talk badly about them tomorrow.”
 
4:55 p.m. “What’s with ‘Project 1945?’” Min is asked. “It wasn’t a conversation. It was just a memo by the vice CEO,” lawyer Timothy SK Lee says. “They came to me and cried yesterday,” Min cuts in. “They thought that I was going to kill myself after the attorneys’ meeting the previous day.”

4:57 p.m. “[HYBE Chief Strategy Officer] Lee Jae-sang threatened the vice CEO, threatening them with how much it would cost them if they were reported for a breach of trust,” Min replies. “So they went to HYBE and [HYBE Chief Financial Officer] Lee Kyung-jun berated them. They wanted to explain that it wasn’t what it seemed like. They forced it out of them. You can cross-check me with anyone.”
 
4:59 p.m. “Where did the memo come from?” Min is asked. “The renegotiation of the contract didn’t go well, regarding both the company and NewJeans,” Min’s attorney Timothy SK Lee says. “It’s just a memo with an individual’s thoughts jotted down.”
 
5:00 p.m. “Are you going to step down?” YTN asks. “How can the HYYBE multilabel system work?”
 
5:01 p.m. “Bang Si-hyuk needs to keep his hands off the labels,” Min says. “Not that he’s not capable — [HYBE labels] BigHit [Music], Pledis [Entertainment] and Source [Music] are produced by Bang Si-hyuk. If a chairman gets involved, then people suck up to you. Other labels do weird things to look good. It’s just human nature. The only way that this can be prevented is if the top man keeps away. If they get involved, you naturally end up talking about who’s the favorite and who’s not. A melting paper? Environmental? Are you kidding me? You need to stop making albums to be environmental. Governance needs a proper road map. An owner should have prevented a copycat from arising, not encouraged one. All I can think is that they’re trying to kill NewJeans. They’re making our thing old. Why would they do this on the same team? It’s not even about respecting the creative rights. Why would you copy it? The posters for NewJeans and [ILLIT’s label] Belift Lab are exactly the same. Really, it is. The hanbok pictorial never existed before us, then ILLIT just copied it exactly. You can’t tell them apart. These intentions are so unpure. We debuted with the Chanel event. HYBE never got that advert for us. The advertisers for NewJeans came to us; they were never given to us by HYBE. I want to apologize for concerning them. But anyway, we debuted with Chanel, but that wasn’t our intention. It just happened to take place before a TV show, and I thought it could be new. Then ILLIT did it with Acne. They just took the formula. Is this not purely intentional? Why did you use our choreography? I asked them, and they didn’t answer us. Our choreographers are so pissed. It would be wrong for us not to say anything. They’re ruining ILLIT, too.”
 
5:04 p.m. Min is asked if she’s resigning. “I don’t know,” the ADOR CEO says. “Do you want to remain at HYBE?” the question continues. “All I care about is NewJeans,” Min answers. “I have no intention of taking the company. I don’t even care if someone else owns the company. All I’m asking is that they leave us alone.” Asked if she is in talks to fix her contract with HYBE, Min replies, “We were — then this happened.”
 
5:05 p.m. “What’s HYBE’s answer to the internal report?” Min is asked. “The audit was their answer,” she says. “They just raided us.”
 
5:06 p.m. A fan, disguised as a reporter, attempts to ask a question. 
 
5:07 p.m. Another question, from TVDaily: “Wasn’t your discussion to ‘take over the company’ something grave?”
 
5:08 p.m. “You need to ask the vice CEO,” Min says. “But it was just a mood swing. One moment, I said that we couldn’t leave this place. It wasn’t even about taking NewJeans outside — we just needed them to leave us alone. But if they kick us out, then tough luck.”
 
5:09 p.m. “If Bang Si-hyuk wants to talk, will you be willing to do so?” the Segye Ilbo asks. “Yes, but they never did,” Min says. “If they asked me to talk, I would’ve. I’d do it for the sake of NewJeans.”
 
5:10 p.m. Min begins to wrap up. “I thank the reporters. I’m not trying to say that I’m the right one. I just wanted to say things candidly. It’s really not about the money. I’m not taking this lightly — what would it have taken to push someone to do this? Imagine yourself being bound to one company forever, wouldn’t that suffocate you? You think of ways you can break free. Some days you feel good, and some days you don’t. But it was just a talk among us on KakaoTalk and the memos that we wrote in between. Our relationship is bad, but I saw what happened with Fifty Fifty. I’m not dumb. If Park Ji-won and Bang Si-hyuk had even once said, why ‘Are you doing this?’ Then I could’ve talked. But I had to resort to an internal report because they never listened to us.”
 
5:12 p.m. “We received a letter from HYBE [asking] to hold a shareholders meeting,” lawyer Lee Sook-mi says. “We were surprised that a management-seizing attempt made the news, because it’s impossible when a company has 80 percent of the shares. I made a divorce analogy, but they’re making a frame out of the very personal things that were said in a divorce fight.”
 
5:13 p.m. “I say things here and there, and the vice CEO is a funny person,” Min says. “If you knew us, then the conversations would’ve made sense. I just want to ask HYBE why they would make everything a problem — why are they making this a big deal? Why didn’t they just talk to me ahead of all of this? They pushed me to this internal report.”
 
5:14 p.m. “There was no attempt at all to take over the company,” lawyer Lee Sook-mi continues. “Only when a very specific and solid plan is made and can be executed, then it becomes a crime.”
 
5:15 p.m. “It’s not about the money for me,” Min says. “I can’t say anything further because it’s got to do with the contract.” 
 
5:16 p.m. “We told you that we were renegotiating the contract, but the ILLIT thing made thing worse,” attorney Timothy SK Lee concludes. “We asked her not to make the internal report because it would worsen their relationships. She went forward because she said that she wanted to make things right.”

BY YOON SO-YEON, CHO YONG-JUN [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]