The leader of (G)-IDLE, Soyeon, is respected for her talent, but has also been embroiled in controversies.
Born in 1998, Soyeon debuted under Cube Entertainment, and became the leader of the famous girl group (G)-IDLE. She has always been well-known for her extreme talent and music producing ability.
Soyeon made her first appearance in the 2016 Mnet survival show “Produce 101”. Despite not making it to the winner group I.O.I, the female idol managed to make a deep impression with her impressive rapping ability and stage presence.
Later, when recalling her experience at “Produce 101”, Soyeon shared that she was rather limited by the show roles. In addition, the female idol added that she felt uncomfortable wearing the show’s iconic pink uniform, since she has a strong personality. However, her honest sharing became a source of criticism, with netizens claiming that Soyeon was disrespecting the show that brought her fame. Many others also misinterpreted her words as looking down on femininity and other girls, and thus, threw harsh words at the female idl.
After “Produce 101”, Soyeon continued to appear in the rap show “Unpretty Rapstar”. There, Soyeon was able to show a truer color of herself, and despite her inexperience, managed to come in 3rd place.
Now, Soyeon has become well-known as the strong and talented leader of Cube girl group (G)-IDLE. However, even now, she was unable to avoid controversies.
In February 2021, Soyeon was accused of being an “iljin”, who hung out with bad students and did inappropriate actions, and quickly received the ire of netizens. However, the accusations were never accompanied by any evidence, and along with Soyeon’s silence, many people also forgot about the incident.
Recently, Soyeon became a mentor of survival show “My Teenage Girl”, and earned respect from many others. She was a straightforward judge and mentor, who gave direct, yet not too harsh comments.
However, the song “SUN”, composed by Soyeon for the finale of the show, was suddenly accused of plagiarism. Accordingly, many people recognized the similarity in melody between “SUN” and the song “Wave” by boy group ATEEZ.
Facing the audience’s outrage, CUBE announced that they would pay more attention to the matter, and Soyeon also quickly contacted the producer of “Wave” directly to apologize. In particular, Soyeon requested to change the credit and add the name of “WAVE”‘s production team. As for ATEEZ‘s management company, they said that although the production team’s name is listed in the credits, they have not yet allowed CUBE to use the original song or the producer’s name.
After 4 months since Soyeon admitted and apologized for plagiarism, the song “SUN” was once again caught in controversy. Netizens discovered that the song was copyrighted on the KOMCA (Korea Music Copyright Association) system under the name of (G)I-DLE Soyeon. Even the name of the original song’s production team was removed from the credits even though they were added earlier. This action has caused a huge wave of outrage on SNS, voicing criticism of the female idol.
Many people think that Soyeon is trying to make a profit from a counterfeit product. Therefore, Soyeon’s nickname “genius artist” also gradually lost its position with the public.
