Stars Suffer Extreme Stress Due To Sasaengfans’ Invasion Of Privacy, “Scary Stalkers Followed Me On Flights”
Korean celebrities are complaining about sasaengfans who have gone as far as illegally selling flight information
On June 18th, HYBE announced that they received the notice that SNS account operators suspected of illegally obtaining and trading flight information of their artists had been sent to prosecution.
According to the police investigation, the suspects earned as many as tens of millions to hundreds of millions of won by selling flight information of Korean artists. These people illegally traded the artists’ flight information through online messages.
Illegally obtained information is often sold to sasaengfans who want to stalk artists’ activities, such as identifying the artists’ seats in advance to buy seats next to them and attempt close contact. Some cases have caused damage to artists’ activities and the operation of entertainment agencies, such as changing the artists’ seats or in-flight meals or disrupting artists’s schedules by canceling flight reservations.
Recently on June 11th, NCT DREAM’s Renjun complained about this issue via the group’s fan communication platform, saying “They followed me even on my personal schedules. Those people are like scary stalkers to me”, adding They sat next to me on the plane and took photos when I slept. This gave me a huge burden”.
He continued, “How did you find out about my ticket information and get to sit next to me? They even replied shamelessly, ‘I didn’t follow you’”, adding “It gave me stress for real. There are many ways to love and like someone, so there’s no need to take such an extreme approach”.
In the past, BTS’s V also confessed his stressful feelings and annoyance caused by sasaengfans. In 2019, V turned on Naver VLIVE and shared, “We took a charter flight. Actually, we want to board a normal flight, but there are people who know which flight we are getting on and try to sit in front of us or next to us. It’s very uncomfortable because we cannot relax in our private space”, adding “To be honest, I hope they won’t do the same thing again. It’s very scary”.
In their recent notice, HYBE emphasized, “Selling and purchasing illegally obtained flight information are clear illegal acts that threaten the artists’ personal life and cause anxiety to them. This is a very serious problem that may cause safety accidents at airports and during flights”, adding “For criminal acts such as trading artists’ personal information, we will take legal action without mercy and agreement”.
