People are coming out with bullying stories against celebrities recently, and (G)I-DLE’s Soojin is the latest to have an accusation levied against her. The story was initially revealed by the sibling of the alleged victim, after which the alleged victim then came forward as well. Soojin is accused of bullying, assault, theft, underage drinking, and underage smoking.
On February 20, someone claiming to be the older sibling of a victim of Soojin’s alleged bullying posted on an online community. The older sibling (henceforth referred to as “A”) wrote, “[Soojin] called my younger sister and her friend to the bathroom and made them slap each other in the face and sent out a group text that said, ‘From now on, OOO (my sister) is an outcast.’” “A” continued, “My little sister went to Waw Middle School and was born in 1998. She lives in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. I’m planning to carefully write out and post about the details on an online forum later. I feel apologetic towards the other [members] besides the perpetrator, but I can no longer turn a blind eye to the painful time my sister experienced. The girl who slapped my sister, took her money, and bullied her has become an idol and shamelessly shows her face on TV.” A person claiming to be the younger sister and the victim of the alleged bullying (henceforth referred to as “B”) also spoke up. “B” stated, “After [Soojin] took me to a bathroom in a shopping complex, she said, ‘I’ll hit her first,” and suddenly slapped me in the face. Then she told my friend who came with me, ‘Now it’s your turn to hit her,’ and made my friend hit me. My friend and I had to slap each other in the face.” “B” added, “She would make me drink the beverage she had opened and left unfinished and then take my money, saying that I had finished her drink and had to pay her for it. She took other people’s uniforms and wore them, borrowed money and didn’t return it, stole other people’s belongings, cursed at other students when they refused to give her their belongings, noisily roamed around the town riding behind one of the older boys who had a motorcycle, drank alcohol, and smoked. “I went to the same academy as her, and one day, I wasn’t able to go, but she texted me to come no matter what. I apologized and said it wouldn’t be possible, but from then on she and the group of delinquents sent out a text to me and everyone else saying, ‘*** is an outcast from now on.’ I was so scared that I called her and kept apologizing.”
As the story spread, Cube Entertainment stepped up with a statement in response.
First, upon checking with Soojin herself about the post about (G)I-DLE’s Soojin that is being spread online, it was found that the creator of the comment is the older sister of Soojin’s classmate from middle school. It is true that the poster heard Soojin and her classmate arguing over the phone and had an argument with Soojin after taking over the call. However, we have confirmed that the poster’s claims about school violence and such were not true at all. We ask of you so that the members, who are doing their best in every moment to achieve their dreams and are moving forward step by step, will not be hurt anymore. We are planning to take legal action under the criminal law and take all other measures we are able to take as a company against all those who have indiscreetly posted false claims with malicious intent. We inform you that we will show no leniency towards the perpetrators who will be punished in the future. Last December 15, Cube Entertainment established a committee dedicated to the protection of artists’ rights and interests and have been continuously monitoring the spread of false rumors, insults, and sexual comments and edits designed to cause humiliation toward our artists. We are working on filing criminal complaints through a law firm. Once again, we thank all those who show lots of love and interest for (G)I-DLE, and [we at] Cube will do our best with all of you for the protection of our artists.
Effectively they are saying that this was all embellished, stemming from a verbal dispute.
These cases tend to be complicated because unless there’s an admission or some kind of paper trail, it’s almost impossible to prove and turns into a war of words. That makes it hard to know much because, as we’ve gone over before, people are dicks.
As such, Soojin probably would’ve been okay after some time since it was mainly just a story. However, there were a couple unexpected factors that emerged in the form of another accuser and actress Seo Shin Ae’s Instagram story that was released after the Cube statement came out.
Initially on Twitter and later on Pann, an accuser came forward providing a certification of attending Waw Middle School, starting off by showing a comment she left on a video of Soojin before, alluding to being her schoolmate and that she could forgive her later.
“No but I was thinking “there’s no way” but turns out it’s really Seo Soojin who attended the same school as me. Do you remember me? I was a fellow schoolmate ㅋㅋ you always showed up to my class and at that time, you were in Kwon Mirae ssaem’s class (t/n: Korean classes have representative teachers) and I’m the kid who transferred during the later half of middle school 3rd yearㅋㅋ I remember so many things too but hearing you talking about how you had it hard is just… Succeed even more, once you succeed, come look for me and apologize, then I’ll be ok”
They decided to come forward eventually after seeing the accusations.
As for me, I’m another person different from the one who exposed her on IG and on Evertime.Kr (t/n: this post will be translated below)
This is the first time I’m posting on PANN
1) I went to to Waw Middle School.
– I was in a different class from Soojin, and Soojin was close to Kang XX from my class so she would come to my class very often
2) Victim of school violence
– There’s a front door + back door at Waw Middle School, a lot of students took the back door when they entered and there was also a futon room at the back door. The assailant would always sit on the futons and grab the kids there to take their money
– As an instruction from the sunbaes, the assailant would go around classes and say stuff like “I’m here to collect money” to take money from others
– There was a guy who was one of the sunbaes who even went to juvenile due to school violence, he would smoke in the small vacant area behind the school with the assailant and get penalized for smoking from time to time
– When in school, North Face was the most fashionable padding (t/n: they call ‘padding’ = padded jacket/coat)
– Seo Soojin asked to give my padding but I refused
That was the moment she slapped me across my face and scratched me with her nails, but fortunately I wasn’t hurt.
But at that moment, Soojin was already in possession of my padding
Kang XX who saw this happen in front of them told her to stop. To me Kang XX wasn’t my assailant, and they weren’t tormenting me. So please don’t say anything about them
At that time, the assailant wore my padding and wrote at the back with a marker “This [coat] is fake. Are you a beggar?”. It’s the first time I told my parents about it on that day and asked them to transfer me to another school.
There were a lot of other instances, but it pains me too much to think about it, so I’ll stop here
3) The reason I’m writing this post
After I transferred school, I learned that she debuted under Idle’s group as Seo Soojin.
I watched her debut video and saw my assailant talk about all the hardship she went through to debut and it kind of arose some compassion in me, so I wrote the comment that I wished her to succeed
and that once she succeeded, that she would apologize to me.
But this time around, since school violence exposing posts became a big issue, I couldn’t hold back anymore and wrote the post.
To all the fans, can you understand how it feels like to ruin someone else’s life?
Honestly, this is a more damning accusation if the latter stuff is not embellished or something because it would be a hell of a thing to post a comment like that and wait for an expose later if it was genuine.
Additionally, actress Seo Shin Ae left a cryptic Instagram Story.
Initially, I didn’t quite put it together, but quick research shows she’s the same age as Soojin and they are from the same area. Netizens have now put that together as well, and are taking this as either her testimony about Soojin or that she was a victim herself.
Not sure I feel comfortable with the conclusions people are jumping to based on a cryptic Instagram Story, but given the attention it has received she surely knows how it’s being interpreted by now.
Either way, I feel like the netizen sentiment has shifted after these two stories emerged, especially the story from the actress. Depending on what follows, this could get messier in a hurry.
As always though, with any developing controversy that’s still somewhat ambiguous, I’d encourage people to keep an open mind as things continue to develop. Not like you get a reward for anchoring your position down early or something.
