By Spencer de Tenley, Managing Editor
K-pop girl group NewJeans went on YouTube live expressing their support for the former CEO of ADOR Min Heejin and concerns about ADOR’s mother company, HYBE.
NewJeans debuted under ADOR in the summer of 2022 and released a slew of EPs and an album with singles including “OMG” and “Ditto.” All five NewJeans members — Haerin, Hyein, Hanni, Danielle and Minji — in the wake of Min’s ongoing legal battle with HYBE, went on a YouTube Live under the new account @nwjns, which is now deleted alongside the live video. However, the video has been documented by fans.
The video, titled “What NewJeans want to say,” saw all five members sitting at a table together. They started off with an apology to fans for the sudden Live, but the members moved to explaining what they wanted to express.
They began by talking about their relationship with parent company HYBE, detailing their feelings of neglect. They discussed the departure of Min as CEO of ADOR. They denounced the departure, praising Min for her direction with NewJeans.
“Even before debuting as NewJeans and through all of the time that we spent together with CEO Min Heejin, all of us felt that the music we wanted to make and the kind of world we wanted to build together, our vision, was similar in so many ways,” member Danielle said.
“CEO Min Heejin is not only the person that produces our music, but someone who makes NewJeans who we are. She discusses even the smallest details with us and explains them in ways that we can understand clearly. NewJeans has a distinct color and tone, and this was created with CEO Min Heejin. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity and we all feel that she is irreplaceable.
NewJeans consists of five members Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein.
Other member Hanni added to this sentiment. “Something that plays a very important role in our team’s color and image is our media content and creative production. Despite saying that they would leave all the creative production to our now former CEO Min Heejin through official statements that I think a lot of you might’ve already read or seen and also during our personal meetings, they infringed our content, content that we not only worked really hard on but also our staff, who spent endless hours to produce and release them solely for our fans,” Hanni said.
Member Hyein shared that the group found out about Min’s departure from her CEO role at the same time major news outlets publicized it. She noted how taken aback the group felt that no communication was given prior to Min’s departure.
As a part of Min’s legal battle with HYBE, she was given two months to serve as a producer for NewJeans before she would be removed from the company. The members all agreed that this was too short of a time frame for their group to properly produce and promote.
The members signed off the video with a statement from member Minji.
“We hope that HYBE makes the wise choice to reinstate Min Heejin as the CEO of ADOR by Sept. 25.” and “The ADOR that we want is an ADOR where the music production and company management are done by Min Heejin as the CEO. We make this request as the way to cohabitate peacefully with HYBE,” Minji said.
The video has led fans to speculate of the group disbanding. As fans wait for more information, the legal battle between Min and HYBE continues.