Former (G)I-DLE member Seo Soo-jin terminated the contract with CUBE Entertainment. This is truly a shameful withdrawal as she couldn’t even clear the suspicions of being a school violence perpetrator.
CUBE Entertainment announced on March 5th, “Our contract with Seo Soo-jin has been terminated”.
In March last year, Seo Soo-jin and her agency sued the first accuser, distributors, and malicious commenters in the school violence case. Regarding the reason why they filed the complaints, they said, “We have submitted all the false information that we have identified so far and evidence related to the case. We want to reveal the truth through a strict investigation by an investigative agency”. According to the investigation’s result, people who got sued were not guilty.
Referring to the investigation on Soo-jin’s bullying case, CUBE said, “Our company and Seo Soo-jin had tried hard to determine its authenticity through the police investigation for a long time, but ‘no charges’ came out as the result”, adding, “We respect the results of the police investigation, and we apologize for causing concern to many people with this incident”. In short, they couldn’t even prove Seo Soo-jin’s school violence suspicions to be false.
Suspicions of Seo Soo-jin committing school violence were raised in February last year. A netizen revealed, “Seo Soo-jin (when she was in middle school) called my younger sister and her friend to the bathroom and force them to them slap each other”, adding, “Seo Soo-jin then sent a text message in her group chat, saying, ‘From now on, XXX will be bullied’. The person who stole my sister’s money and bullied her became an idol and appeared on TV shamelessly”.
This netizen continued, “I thought people who did bad things would always get them back in return”, adding, “I feel so painful seeing her, who ruined my school days, putting on a shy and kind image and being surrounded by fans who don’t know anything about her past”. Later, actress Seo Shin-ae testified that she and her younger brother were also bullied by Seo Soo-jin.
When more revelations appeared, Seo Soo-jin’s side responded that the accusations were “groundless”. As the scandal intensified, Seo Soo-jin personally refuted the controversies related to her one by one. She explained, “I have never bullied or badmouthed anyone”, adding, “Every time I revealed my position, Seo Shin-ae would post an article right away, so many people have misunderstood that I had committed violence against Seo Shin-ae”.
Then, Seo Shin-ae, who had stayed silent for a while, admitted to being a victim of school violence through a post on her SNS. The actress said, “She said she didn’t remember anything and had never talked to me. That’s right. I was insulted one-sided”, adding, “I’m disappointed that you said you have never made any bad remarks or actions behind my back”. With this revelation, public criticism against Seo Soo-jin intensified.
Eventually, Seo Soo-jin left her group in August last year. In addition, for the first time in 7 months, the company also offered a “termination of exclusive contract” and let go of Seo Soo-jin. In other words, Seo Soo-jin is left with only suspicions of school violence.
