HYBE issued a statement regarding an internal industry trend report disclosed during a National Assembly audit, ultimately apologizing following criticism from South Korea’s Culture, Sports, and Tourism Committee.
On Thursday evening, HYBE announced through its official website, “The monitoring report disclosed during today’s parliamentary audit by the Culture, Sports, and Tourism Committee compiles various reactions and opinions from fandoms and the industry. It was created by directly quoting responses from communities and social media to share industry trends and issues with a small number of internal staff for reference purposes. It does not represent HYBE’s position.”
HYBE further explained that the report also includes positive feedback from fans and valuable opinions that an entertainment company should consider. They added that they would hold accountable those responsible for selectively releasing only provocative parts of the report to the public, which created the impression that HYBE had produced a document critical of its artists.
Earlier that afternoon, Kim Tae Ho, HYBE’s Chief Operating Officer and CEO of Belift Lab, appeared as a witness at the Culture, Sports, and Tourism Committee’s comprehensive audit at the National Assembly, where Democratic Party Representative Min Hyung Bae disclosed portions of an industry trend review report created for HYBE executives.
The report contained statements regarding other agencies and idols, such as “They debuted when the members were at their peak age for looking unattractive,” “The plastic surgery was overdone,” “Thinking about the shock everyone felt about their looks when Artist A debuted, it seems B Entertainment’s aesthetic standards have changed,” and “When people say Artist C looks unattractive, respond with past photos of Artist D; when they say Artist E can’t dance, show them Artist F.”
Regarding these remarks, Kim Tae Ho stated, “We create and review monitoring reports, but I do not remember those particular comments,” and added, “These are not official evaluations from HYBE but seem to be collected from online posts for monitoring purposes.”
However, when this response emerged during the audit, Committee Chairman Jeon Jae Soo remarked, “Responding like this from the company while the National Assembly audit is ongoing, and when a committee member is asking questions, is highly inappropriate.” Kim Tae Ho responded that he had not seen HYBE’s official statement.
Later, at the end of the audit, Kim stated, “I humbly accept the criticism that the statement posted on our company website during the audit was inappropriate, and I deeply apologize. We were inundated with media inquiries about our position, making it difficult to respond to each one individually. We also judged that content not covered in the audit and unredacted content from the audit was being exposed and spreading rapidly with distortions in online communities.”
He added, “We had no intention of disregarding the National Assembly, and issuing the statement was clearly our mistake,” and promised, “We will also address the issues related to this report going forward.”
The statement previously posted on HYBE’s official website has since been removed.