Statements of ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin During Emergency Conference That Left Fans Shocked

On April 25th, ADOR's CEO Min Hee Jin made a public appearance through an emergency press conference. During the event, the embattled CEO refuted the allegations made by HYBE, which centered around an alleged attempt to take over ADOR's management rights in order to make it an independent company.

photo courtesy of Elle Korea

According to the live coverage and translations of Korea Kim JoongAng Daily, below are some of the statements and allegations made by Min Hee Jin during the press conference. A few of them included screenshots of conversations between executives:

“I did not expect that such attention would be focused on me. I never expected that they would monitor my KakaoTalk chats and want to kill me. I am eager to speak, so it would be strange for me not to. I resorted to holding this event at such a short notice. They're hitting me with the 'management seize' frame, but I just cannot agree. I know that's what you read, but when I speak about the plagiarism issue, it's like people dismiss me and think I'm talking about something completely different.”
“The things that I talked about comfortably with Park Ji Won (HYBE's CEO) have made me 'the grumpy old woman.' The things that I've been saying with my vice CEO (in ADOR) are just things that we discussed out of intimacy. Yes, some things went over the line, but it's because the conversations have been rid of the context of where they came from. If someone framed you a certain way and edited your own conversations, it would be so easy to make a new story out of it.”
“I've actually not been happy, even though NewJeans was successful. And people asked me whether I was.”
"Everything that HYBE is saying is a lie. I've never said BTS copied me.”
I joined Big Hit Entertainment as the chief brand officer, not Source Music. I have never tried to hijack control of ADOR.
“It's not me that turned my back on HYBE, it's HYBE that betrayed me. It used me to the fullest and now wants to take me down because I don't listen to them.
"I've been fed up with the long-lasting ails of the Kpop industry. But it was that I was good at my work, rather than that I liked it. I held on because of the achievements that I'd made. But just two days later, I got a call from a headhunter. They told me 'someone' wanted to see me but didn't tell me who. It was (HYBE founder) Bang Si Hyuk. The person who attacks me now, as if it's ok for me to kill myself, I don't want to talk badly about them. I don't want to talk trash. I'm just saying what I've been experiencing."
“What I wanted to do at first was HYBE branding, turning the Big Hit Entertainment (BTS and TXT's agency) company into a holding company. I also took on the making of a girl group because he (Bang Si Hyuk) said that he wasn't confident in making a girl group. I took it on knowing that it would be a lot of work. He promised me full support, but there wasn't a label called ADOR.”
"'We needed to make a new girl group label, so let's buy Source Music. They have trainees, so why don't we use them to debut a new girl group?' I said no at first (to what Bang Si Hyuk said) but I wanted to be cooperative because I had just moved to the new company.”
Source Music had GFriend. Disbanding that group had nothing to do with me. Let me just emphasize that.
“I have never been at Source Music. I don't make friends at work. I don't go to company outings. So even if they had trainees at Source Music, there was no one other than Minji that I could recruit.”

Please read the whole translation.

MHJ: I'm sorry to say but among the female trainees at Source, the only one I could select was Minji. The others needed more training or were too old or weren't a good match with me, so I wasn't able to choose them. So+https://t.co/OYmetNSVi5
— christa⁷ 🐿️OTS (@ryuminating) April 25, 2024

"What HYBE told me was 'Min Hee Jin girl group, lets intrigue people with that.' And what would a girl group from the BTS agency look like? HYBE said that people would become curious. I began branding an audition starting from there. I had to brand the whole thing because there was no other group for people to see. Hanni was the first person who we cast with the new branded idea.”
Ji Won (HYBE CEO) and So Sung Jin (Former Source Music CEO) said that HYBE's first girl group would have to be a new girl group from Source Music with Sakura and Kim Chaewon. I swore at them, saying, 'Are you out of your minds?' The trainees all came to me because it was going to be a Min Hee Jin girl group, not a Source Music girl group. I never knew that they were recruiting Sakura and Kim Chaewon, but then they said they were debuting that group first. I said I was going to quit and open a press conference. Park Jiwon asked me what he could do to make up for the situation.”
The parents were so angry. They blamed Source Music because they were afraid that (the members of NewJeans) might not debut because of the Source Music girl group. I didn't want to turn my back on the trainees because I would be abandoning them. They didn't even let me see the girls.”
“I told them that I'd take these girls because I wanted to help them debut. I wasn't stealing them. I thought that making ADOR would be for the good of the girls and the shareholders. But Bang Si Hyuk said that he wouldn't let me do it unless the company held a 100 percent stake. But it was my branding and my creation."
"Park Ji Won (HYBE CEO) came to us and told us not to promote NewJeans before LE SSERAFIM's debut, because they wanted people to think that LE SSERAFIM was Min Hee Jin's girl group.”
“Bang Si Hyuk asked me, 'You can beat aespa in December, right?' But that was never my goal.”
“I thought that he (Bang Si Hyuk) was a really generous person, but I found that he was different on the outside from how he was on the inside. I know that I look weird to him. He suddenly asked me, after NewJeans released 'Ditto,' 'Are you happy? Why are you laughing? I want to know.' Why wouldn't I have been happy? Doesn't the conversation seem really weird? Our relationship had changed.”
"The reason that we separated the company (ADOR from HYBE) was because they broke the promise and debuted Sakura first. I went on 'You Quiz [on the Block]' because this was what I wanted to say.”
“Park Ji Won told me that I shouldn't say that NewJeans is a completely new team, because they wanted to confuse people... They never let me promote NewJeans as the first girl group from Min Hee-jin because they intentionally wanted to confuse people. That was all Bang Si-hyuk's doing."

“When the investor relations team called me 'the best creator' in a memo, they told the team to get rid of 'the best.' It changed from the moment they first hired me. I didn't want to lie, but he kept telling me that it was his job to 'guide' me. We used to make jokes to each other. But now, I want to ask why they want to kick me out. When did I ever 'ask' BTS to go to the military?”
“I had to get therapy because of HYBE."
"I messaged the parents that I was doing all this because NewJeans just feels like my baby. They really do. They've been calling me and crying at night telling me that they feel so sorry for me.”
“The mother of a member called me and said that I should tell my story because I'm being witch-hunted. They knew that HYBE was trying to make me the witch and Source Music the victim. I would not have made an internal report if it were about money. I can make 100 billion won ($72.8 million) without doing any of this. I'm doing this because I have to speak out. This is me. This is why I'm going through all this. Why would a mother say this? Why can I not be protected? Why do I have to be used by Park Ji-won, by Bang Si-hyuk? I did everything that I could. Everyone who's worked with me knows how I work. Do I look like such a person to you?”
"There are so many bastards in this industry. I need to vent. You're depressed now, Park Ji Won? I've been depressed for 10 years.”
Park Ji Won agreed that Bang Si Hyuk bullied me. This is all on him. He tried to exploit me. I listened to Park Ji Won because I respected him. But had they captured this conversation, then this would also have been used against me. I've become a psycho in the past three days."
“They hated me and wanted to kill me for making the internal report (ILLIT allegedly copying NewJeans)"
"They said that they gave me 5 billion won, but I only got 2 billion won. Park Ji-won got 1 billion won despite the minus at his company. Why does he get more? I did all this in this barren land. Was HYBE really treating me right? I said that I couldn't trust them after what they did to NewJeans despite their success. How can I trust them?"
“If you try to kill a subsidiary that's doing well, that's breach of trust. That's going against shareholders' rights.”
"Please, I wish reporters would listen to the stories of the little ones. Please write the stories of the little ones. It's so unfair, and I didn't even know how to play this game. Keep an eye out if they promote NewJeans like the way they're doing it now.”
"Each label needs to keep its uniqueness, like with ILLIT. I'm not talking trash about them. They're innocent, the members — it's the adults that have sinned. They just copied all the formulas that we had with NewJeans. It's obvious that ADOR will compare us to what they did. They should never have gone with the multilabel (system) and should've just done what SM and YG do. When someone copies someone and does it well, it brings everyone down. It brings the whole industry down. It damages shareholder value. I don't care about being cursed at, but I feel relieved that I can talk about everything today. Everything needs to change.”
“Album prices don't go up but production cost does. If we don't make random gifts, people compare each member's popularity. That's why we don't make photo cards. I don't like random gifts, either. I wanted to compete fairly with content. I micromanage because that's taking responsibility.
"Our relationship is bad, but I saw what happened with FIFTY FIFTY. I'm not dumb. If Park Ji-won and Bang Si-hyuk had even once said, why 'Are you doing this?' Then I could've talked. But I had to resort to an internal report because they never listened to us.”
"What pisses me off about HYBE is that it takes credit for NewJeans. That goes against ethics, and they don't even respect the consumers.”
“Why do we need to be damaged because of HYBE? I want to sue HYBE. They told me to hand in my laptop yesterday then disclosed a different date from others. They're lawyers from Kim & Chang. I'm just a normal person from art school. How can I tell my story? It's only HYBE stories that are getting out. But I'm so grateful for everyone who helped me along the way, including reporters. How can they treat me like this after everything that I have done? The only thing I can appeal to is sincerity.”
“The audit was their answer. They just raided us," said Min Hee Jin after being asked how HYBE responded to her internal report.
"An owner should have prevented a copycat from arising, not encouraged one. All I can think is that they're trying to kill NewJeans. They're making our thing old. Why would they do this on the same team? It's not even about respecting the creative rights. Why would you copy it? The posters for NewJeans and Belift Lab (ILLIT's label) are exactly the same. Really, it is. The hanbok pictorial never existed before us, then ILLIT just copied it exactly. You can't tell them apart. These intentions are so unpure. We debuted with the Chanel event. HYBE never got that advertise for us. The advertisers for NewJeans came to us; they were never given to us by HYBE. I want to apologize for concerning them. But anyway, we debuted with Chanel, but that wasn't our intention. It just happened to take place before a TV show, and I thought it could be new. Then ILLIT did it with Acne. They just took the formula. Is this not purely intentional? Why did you use our choreography? I asked them, and they didn't answer us. Our choreographers are so pissed. It would be wrong for us not to say anything. They're ruining ILLIT, too."

After being asked by the reporters on whether she will resign as the CEO of ADOR, Min Hee Jin said, "I don't know. All I care about is NewJeans. I have no intention of taking the company. I don't even care if someone else owns the company. All I'm asking is that they leave us alone.”

The press conference eventually concluded with Min Hee Jin and her legal advisers firmly claiming that there was no attempt to take over ADOR unlike the previous accusations made by HYBE.

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