Former SM CEO’s Now-Deleted Comments Resurface Amid NewJeans-HYBE Conflict

Recently, the net is on fire with recent escalations regarding NewJeans & HYBE following Min Hee-jin’s removal from NewJeans’ agency, ADOR. 

In particular, the fact that NewJeans held a livestream demanding HYBE to re-establish Min Hee-jin as a CEO and expressing worries about them being ostracized, followed by BTS’s Jungkook’s post allegedly showing support for NewJeans drew huge attention.

Amid this line of events, now-deleted comments from a former CEO of SM Entertainment suddenly start to resurface. 

In particular, in 2023, after founder Lee Soo-man left SM, HYBE attempted to seize SM by purchasing stakes from Lee Soo-man. 

While trying to stop this take-over, the CEO at the time, Lee Sung-soo, made videos exposing Lee Soo-man misdeeds, and mentioned HYBE in a now-deleted video called “Reasons why SM is against HYBE’s Hostile Takeover”. 

maturing is realizing they were right all along https://t.co/XpcOH06pPV pic.twitter.com/4L25SutUhX

— nil 𝜗𝜚 (@newjiram) September 12, 2024

The video claimed that HYBE will likely prioritize its own artists over SM artists by giving better resources to idols in labels wherein HYBE has higher ownership over. 

These claims have thus been brought back amid the NewJeans’ situation, and posts from netizens reflecting on Lee Sung-soo’s words have since gone viral.

The fate of groups from labels acquired by HYBE, including GFRIEND and fromis_9, also became topics of discussion. 

Source: X, Krb