ADOR
Members of NewJeans have announced they are parting ways with their label ADOR, a subsidiary of HYBE.
In a late-night press conference on Thursday (Nov. 28), the five-member K-pop group, which formed in 2022, revealed that they are severing ties with ADOR due to allegations that the label had violated their contract.
“Once we leave ADOR, we’ll aim to proceed freely with the activities that we really desire,” member Danielle said, according to Reuters. “We really wish to be able to release new music for Bunnies, next year, as soon as possible, whenever,” she added, referencing the group’s fanbase. “We really hope that we have the opportunity to meet you guys from all around the world.”
NewJeans also stated that, after their contract termination, they may no longer be able to use their group name going forward.
In response, ADOR maintained that its agreement with NewJeans “remains in full effect.” The label urged the group to continue collaborating on upcoming projects. “We respectfully request that the group continue its collaboration with ADOR,” the statement read, according to Reuters.
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NewJeans’ announcement comes amid a months-long management dispute between HYBE and ADOR’s former CEO, Min Hee-jin, who also serves as the group’s creative director. Earlier this year, HYBE accused Hee-jin of attempting to take the company independent, a claim he denied. During Thursday’s press conference, NewJeans expressed a desire to continue working with Hee-jin.
Earlier this month, NewJeans sent a legal notice to HYBE outlining a list of demands, including the reinstatement of Min Hee-jin as CEO of ADOR. The group warned that if their demands were not met, they would terminate their contract, according to CNBC. NewJeans was previously bound by a seven-year contract with ADOR, set to expire in 2029, Rolling Stone reports.
In October, NewJeans member Hanni tearfully testified before South Korea’s parliament, alleging she had experienced workplace harassment at the company. The Seoul Regional Office of Employment and Labor announced on Nov. 20 that it had closed its investigation, concluding that Hanni could not be considered an employee under the law.
Min Hee-jin’s mission to be reappointed as CEO of NewJeans’ label ADOR just hit another hurdle. On Tuesday (Oct. 29), a South Korean court dismissed the embattled executive’s application to be reinstated in the position, according to reports from Korea JoongAng Daily and Mael Business Newspaper.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the dismissal means the court ruled in favor of HYBE and terminated the case without a judgment on its merits — essentially not conceding or accepting Min’s filing to begin with.
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Min originally submitted her application for reappointment on Sept. 13. In it, she asked the court to order HYBE’s internal board to re-elect a “new” CEO (a.k.a. herself), arguing that she needed to be in the position in order for NewJeans to continue its activities. However, the court’s latest decision has weakened that argument, the source says. Should Min continue her push to be reinstated as CEO, she will likely need to use a different argument to have any chance of her case moving forward.
For the time being, Min is expected to stay on as an internal director of ADOR. She was replaced as CEO by Kim Ju-young, HYBE’s head HR officer, in August.
“We acknowledge and appreciate the court’s wise ruling,” a representative for HYBE tells Billboard in a statement. “In light of this decision, HYBE is dedicated to normalizing ADOR’s operations, improving our multi-label capabilities, and supporting the activities of our artists.”
The development is the latest event in Min and HYBE’s months-long power struggle over ADOR and its powerhouse act NewJeans that stretches back to April 2024. Following an internal audit of ADOR, HYBE — also home to acts like BTS, Seventeen and Le Sserafim — called for the immediate resignation of Min as CEO, accusing her of trying to hijack the label imprint as well as NewJeans. The conflict has since devolved into a tangled web of he-said-she-saids, multiple lawsuits, and ultimately, Min stepping down from her position on Aug. 27.
Throughout the process, the members of NewJeans have become increasingly involved in the conflict, publicly sharing their support for Min during live performances and in a since-deleted 27-minute YouTube video in which they alleged mistreatment and a toxic work environment at HYBE. Most recently, NewJeans member Hanni, 20, appeared in court to testify to South Korean lawmakers about alleged workplace harassment, saying, “I came to the realization that this wasn’t just a feeling. I was honestly convinced that the company hated us.” During her testimony, she cited instances when she felt HYBE undermined the band and senior managers of the company deliberately ignored her.
While Min hasn’t yet released an official statement regarding the latest court decision, she’s gone on the record to South Korean media saying that she plans to “go all the way” in her legal pursuit to be reinstated.
Following the court’s decision, ADOR’s internal board again voted against reinstating Min on Wednesday (Oct. 30).
HYBE has reopened an investigation against Min Hee-jin, the former CEO of its subsidiary label ADOR, with whom the K-pop conglomerate has been in a monthslong legal battle regarding her position at the company.
On Sept. 24, HYBE confirmed to Billboard that ADOR launched an investigation into whether Min improperly interfered in the company’s initial investigation into a sexual harassment claim and violated confidentiality obligations. ADOR also began a re-investigation of an ADOR VP involved in the situation. HYBE declined to comment on how long the investigations have been underway or when they plan to share their findings. Min and a representative tell Billboard she was never formally informed of the investigation through external or internal company means.
Min is pushing back on HYBE’s handling of the case, which was initiated by its sub-label ADOR, which houses NewJeans, calling the company’s internal investigations biased due to an alleged conflict of interest with the executive who replaced her as label CEO overseeing the case.
Sources tell Billboard that the investigation involves allegations that Min had covered up an incident involving a male VP at ADOR, where a female employee reported feeling harassed and bullied during a work-related dinner.
The controversy dates back to February 2024, when the ADOR VP allegedly pressured a female employee to attend a dinner with a client, claiming it would be beneficial to have a young woman present, according to an internal report shared with Billboard. During the dinner, the VP left abruptly, leaving the employee alone with a client, creating an uncomfortable situation that the report says “seemed orchestrated.” The employee reported the incident to HYBE’s internal compliance system, citing sexual harassment and workplace bullying. While an internal HR investigation was conducted, it ultimately recommended only a stern warning for the VP, as harassment claims could not be definitively proven, with the case dismissed.
Min Hee-jin’s role in the aftermath of this complaint is what has come under scrutiny. According to the report, Min doubted the credibility of the employee’s complaint and organized an all-hands meeting with both the complainant and the accused, violating the company’s standard HR procedures. An audit of the situation added that Min had coached the VP on how to respond to the allegations.
When the Korean tabloid site Dispatch first reported the incident, Min responded to the claims with a media statement and shared information about the employee on her social media, including the employee’s salary. HYBE has said that the employee filed lawsuits for defamation and privacy violations, but a representative for Min tells Billboard she, as well as the VP, are only facing a defamation suit. The rep adds that the VP has also sued the employee for defamation and claimed damages, which had not been previously shared with the media.
At the time, Min stated that the issues stemmed from poor work performance and that the employee left the company after a salary cut. Min tells Billboard the salary information she revealed through an Instagram Story post did not identify the individual and says it was HYBE, not herself, who publicly disclosed the private parties’ identities in media statements throughout their dispute.
In a phone interview last week, Min questioned the legitimacy of HYBE’s ongoing investigations and directly addressed the appointment of Ju Young Kim, ADOR’s new CEO, who replaced her and led the initial investigation that dismissed the harassment claim. During her time as ADOR’s CEO, Min claims she was not in a position to “conceal” sexual harassment cases nor in charge of such decisions.
“The one who actually made a final decision after reviewing all the statements, all the evidence and reporting, is Kim Ju Young, who is currently the CEO of ADOR,” Min says. “She made those final decisions by herself within HR of HYBE, but then later on, she brought up this issue again and accused me with different charges to try to re-open an investigation.”
Min adds, “I have been telling HYBE, ‘If you want to do an investigation or re-investigation, you need to make it formal and official by not having any investigating done by those involved in previous cases. They could hire a third party to investigate, but instead, they’re going into another internal investigation by the same person who actually made the final decision.”
The final results of the audit are expected in the coming days.
HYBE declined to comment on whether the company has spoken with or plans to speak with NewJeans directly, but Billboard learned that the NewJeans members and their parents met ADOR’s current CEO Ju Young Kim on Sept. 24 to solidify each side’s position.
Despite the ongoing investigation, ADOR shared its decision on Sept. 25 to allow Min back to the subsidiary as an internal director and producer for NewJeans, but would not honor the request to reinstate her as its CEO.
“The board has resolved to convene an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to reappoint Min Hee-jin as an internal director,” ADOR said in an official statement (per The Korea Herald). “However, the board cannot accept the request for her reinstatement as CEO at this time. Min Hee-jin’s role and authority as the producer for NewJeans are fully guaranteed, and further discussions on specific terms will take place in the future.”
Min Hee-jin issued a press statement in Korea rejecting the proposal and requesting again to be reinstated as CEO.
09/12/2024
A tense war of words and a slew of lawsuits have ensued as the K-pop giant and CEO tangle for control of the popular girl group NewJeans.
09/12/2024
During the months-long feud between HYBE and NewJeans creative director and former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, the Billboard 200-topping girl group has largely remained silent. But early Wednesday morning (Sept. 11), group members Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein made their voices heard.
In a since-deleted post on their Twitter account, the group shared a YouTube link that led to a livestream on a no-longer accessible YouTube account named “nwjeans.” During the livestream, the five members spoke for about 30 minutes in Korean and English about their situation, expressing anxiety over their professional futures, worries about continuing to work under HYBE and revealing previously unheard stories.
Apologizing for the “sudden meeting,” all five members of the K-pop girl group sat in a nondescript room with notebooks, papers and iPads during the livestream. The youngest NewJeans member, Hyein, 18, spoke first, explaining that staff members they trusted (presumably also under or previously under the HYBE/ADOR umbrella) helped set up the location and stream but that it was the quintet’s choice to speak out.
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After that, Haerin noted that media coverage revolving around NewJeans’ situation became invasive when their private medical records and videos from their days as HYBE trainees leaked on the internet — four of the five NewJeans members were minors under the age of 18 when they debuted in July 2022 — but that when the group, alongside Min and their parents, raised concerns to ADOR parent company HYBE, the K-pop giant took no action.
One of the most talked about moments online among K-pop fans came early in the broadcast, when Hanni shared a story about a time when, while at the HYBE building to get her hair and makeup done, an unnamed HYBE LABELS group passed her with a manager. According to the Vietnamese-Australian singer, after initially greeting one another, the manager told the members of the other group to “ignore her.”
During the livestream, NewJeans members also expressed worries about the ADOR label’s inner workings following Min’s ouster as CEO.
In reference to ADOR’s new legal battle with Shin Woo-seok, the director of NewJeans’ “Ditto” and “ETA” music videos, Minji said it was “frightening” to see their work compromised. The director has alleged that ADOR targeted him for uploading “director cut” versions of NewJeans music videos and other content, which he claimed to have permission for, on his personal YouTube account.
Following ADOR’s removal of those videos, the label shared a statement on Sept. 4 that it would do its best to “ensure that the deleted NewJeans content can be uploaded to ADOR’s official channel in the future,” as reported by the Korea JoongAng Daily. That report also noted ADOR’s follow-up statement that only the “director cut” music videos were requested for removal — not behind-the-scenes clips starring the members that have racked up millions of views — while claiming it was advertisers who wanted the “director cut” videos removed.
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“Just like that, the content that we released solely for our fans, for our Bunnies, was instantly erased,” Danielle said in English about the incident. “I truly can’t understand why anyone would do this to a group or just anyone in general.”
Minji added that ADOR’s “new management” would keep production and management teams separate, like other HYBE LABELS. Under this arrangement, which saw Min being restricted only to production, and not being part of the discussions around the group’s overall management strategy, the group members said they were apprehensive over how they could continue as the NewJeans in its current form.
“Personally, the way that ADOR used to run was the business management and creative production was not separated…factors that played and worked in harmony with each other,” Hanni said in English. “It was our way of working and it was our CEO’s way of producing NewJeans’ content which a lot of you were able to enjoy and appreciate. But now that she’s no longer CEO, these factors that should have continued to work together in harmony are now being seen as two different areas of work.”
On Aug. 27, HYBE announced that Min would step down as ADOR CEO and shared in a statement to Billboard that ADOR “will restructure to separate its production from management — a multi-label practice that has been standard across all other HYBE labels but was previously not implemented at ADOR.”
Haerin also claimed that NewJeans learned of Min’s dismissal through the news instead of through their company, saying it “made it clear to us that they don’t respect us at all” and led them to feel that statements about HYBE’s plans for NewJeans were empty promises. (In April, HYBE shared a statement with Billboard claiming that the company “will continue to provide attententive [sic] mental and emotional care to the company’s artist NewJeans…the company will meet legal representatives of the respective members as soon as possible to discuss the plan to protect the act.”)
Beyond these specific incidents, the five NewJeans members also spoke at length of their worries about losing their team identity and wariness that HYBE has their best interests in mind while insisting that Min return to work with them.
“Even before debuting as NewJeans and through all of the time that we spent together with Min Hee-jin 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,” 19-year-old Danielle said. “Putting our sincere effort into something is only possible because of the people that we’re working with have trust in each other and have that same vision.
“Min Hee-jin 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 Min Hee-jin. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity and we all feel that she is irreplaceable.”
Hanni later spoke to HYBE’s alleged directive that Min wrap up all her creative work in the next two months following her dismissal as CEO.
“Like how we have our own and individual thoughts and feelings, we have the choice to choose how we will react to each situation and we are not going to follow HYBE’s every order blindly,” Hanni said in English. “We are more than well aware that this is getting in the way of our work and that we should be treated much much better than how we are right now. And it’s very hard to believe that they are truly sincere about wanting to help us continue, to be able to continue to work with our Min Hee-jin.
“Despite her being in the midst of all this current legal conflict, she’s expected to plan and creatively produce our future endeavors in just only two months, which I personally think makes no sense at all. We don’t want to hear all the empty words of how they’re going to help us continue to work with Min Hee-jin. And all we want is this legal conflict to be resolved and have our working environment returned back to normal the way it was before.”
NewJeans’ eldest member, Minji, 20, ended the livestream with a direct message to HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk, saying, “We hope chairman Bang and HYBE make a wise decision to restore ADOR to its original state by the 25th.”
HYBE has not yet responded to Billboard‘s request for comment about the livestream.
The now five-month-long conflict began in April, when HYBE launched an audit of ADOR and asked Min to step down as CEO. The K-pop giant later reported Min to police, alleging the executive had committed a breach of trust. That led Min to respond by holding an emotionally charged press conference during which she denied claims that she had usurped NewJeans’ management and doubled down on claims that HYBE subsidiary BELIFT LAB had plagiarized NewJeans with its own girl group, ILLIT, and that another HYBE subsidiary, Source Music, had broken its promise to debut NewJeans as its first girl group, among other claims. Min was subsequently sued by both BELIFT and Source for defamation due to those comments, riling up several K-pop fanbases against her.
In May, a court ruled that Min could legally stay in her position. But in the past month, a former female ADOR employee accused Min of covering up her reportsof sexual harassment from a male superior. While HYBE’s own internal investigation reportedly concluded that the incidents didn’t constitute harassment, Min allegedly verbally abused the employee for speaking out — a claim that Min has denied, instead alleging that the issue arose from the former employee’s job performance and salary negotiations.
On Aug. 27, HYBE announced that it had appointed an ADOR director with human resources expertise, Ju Young Kim, as the label’s new CEO, and that Min would step down from her role but remain as an in-house director.
While HYBE has successfully expanded into an entertainment powerhouse built around its multi-label structure, the Korean corporation says it has investigated one of its crown jewel agencies, ADOR, the home of chart-topping girl group NewJeans.
Since its launch in late 2021, ADOR (an acronym for the phrase All Doors One Room) has been led by Min Hee-jin, a veteran creative in the K-pop industry who famously helped develop the scene’s penchant for artistic concepts and craft era-defining K-pop acts like Girls’ Generation, SHINee, f(x), EXO and Red Velvet during her tenure at SM Entertainment. After Min’s exit from SM, she joined then–Big Hit Entertainment in 2019 as chief brand officer and helmed the company’s rebrand into HYBE. During the 2021 rebrand reveal, HYBE announced Min as CEO of a new label, ADOR, with plans to debut the girl group that would become NewJeans.
Earlier this month, a report by Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service revealed that Min controlled an 18% stake in ADOR since late last year. HYBE previously had complete control of the label but now boasts 80%, with an additional two percent owned by other company executives. HYBE reportedly invested 16.1 billion won (about $11.7 million) to establish ADOR.
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Less than two years into NewJeans’ history-making debut, HYBE is asking Min to step down from ADOR after an audit of her, the label and its executives.
HYBE confirmed to Billboard that on April 22, the company “invoked the right to audit CEO Min Hee-Jin and top executives of its subsidiary label ADOR.” HYBE said it “called them to summon a shareholder meeting and sent an official letter to ask CEO Min to step down.” HYBE added that it could not provide further information on reason or reasons for the audit or why it is asking Min to step down.
Since news of the audit went public, ADOR and Min Hee-jin have gone on the offensive in the Korean media.
In a series of statements, ADOR claims HYBE’s newest act, the five-member girl group ILLIT under another subsidiary, BELIFT LAB, is copying NewJeans. With HYBE founder and current chairman Bang Si-hyuk involved in ILLIT’s debut album Super Real Me (No. 6 on the World Albums chart after three weeks), ADOR claims both BELIFT LAB and HYBE are complicit in the alleged infringement. ADOR says they raised the copycat issue internally a month ago but did not receive answers, claiming now that HYBE’s attempt to remove her as CEO is a result of bringing up the alleged problem. Min gave an additional interview to Korean outlet Sports Ilgan to fire back at rumors she was trying to break ADOR away from HYBE or seek outside investors to go independent with her 18% stake.
Min Hee-jin has not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Min and ADOR quickly spun NewJeans into a slew of record-setting achievements including a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with 2023’s Get Up just a year after the debut, five Hot 100 hits to their name, a well-received live debut in the U.S. at Lollapalooza last year, plus honors like Top Global K-Pop Artist at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards and the first K-pop act honored as Group of the Year for Billboard‘s Women in Music. In 2023, Min earned a spot on Billboard‘s International Power Players and Women in Music executive lists and also collaborated with V of BTS on the overall production of his debut solo album, Layover, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in September.
The K-pop power clash comes as NewJeans prepares for several releases including new singles “Bubble Gum” and “How Sweet,” with the former’s music video scheduled to drop April 26 on the HYBE LABELS YouTube channel. NewJeans is also preparing their first-ever Japanese singles “Supernatural” and “Right Now,” as well as a new album planned for the second half of 2024.
Elsewhere in the HYBE universe, ILLIT’s “Magnetic” is currently at No. 91 on the Hot 100, making it the first debut single from a K-pop act to enter the ranking. New music from HYBE artists like Zico (under HYBE LABELS’ KOZ Entertainment) and SEVENTEEN (PLEDIS Entertainment) are also coming this month. Historically, internal company issues can affect K-pop music or content releases, but no updates have been shared as of press time.
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