The ex-boss of NewJeans’ record label has offered to forgo a 25.6bn won ($17.9m; £13.2m) payout if entertainment giant Hybe drops all lawsuits against the K-pop group.
Min Hee-jin said she “can no longer bear to watch” NewJeans get “torn apart” when its five members “should instead be standing happily on stage”.
Hybe, whose client list includes K-pop royalty like BTS and Seventeen, said in December it had terminated the contract of NewJeans member Danielle Marsh and was suing her for contract violation and other damages.
The chart-topping band has been locked in a bitter feud with its label Ador, a Hybe subsidiary, since it sacked Min as the label’s CEO in August 2024.
NewJeans, who saw Min as a mentor, announced they would leave the agency following her dismissal, but a South Korea district court ruled last October that they must honour their contract with Ador, which runs until 2029.
In a separate ruling earlier this month, the court sided with Min in a put option dispute with Hybe, ordering the entertainment giant to pay her 25.6bn won.
A put option is a contract that gives its owner the right to sell an asset at a future date at a predetermined price.
Hybe has appealed against the ruling.
“I’m here because there are values I desperately want more than a large sum of money,” Min said on Wednesday, noting that NewJeans was the main reason behind her decision to give up the payout.
Min has called for the withdrawal of all ongoing civil and criminal lawsuits against NewJeans members, as well as external partners, former Ador employees, and fans who have been drawn into the conflict.
“Only then will the artistes, their families, and their fans be free from further unnecessary noise,” she said.
Hybe has yet to respond to her offer.
NewJeans, who became the eighth biggest-selling act in the world a year after their debut in 2022, were seen as a game-changer by critics for their blend of 1990s R&B and sugar-coated pop melodies.
Their dramatic row with Hybe has rocked the K-pop world. Fans around the world have taken to social media urging the agency to “free NewJeans”.
“It’s not fair at all. Free NewJeans [all 5 members],” a fan wrote on Instagram after Marsh’s termination last year. “All they wanted to do was to be [artists] and make their fans happy.”
Min’s statement on Wednesday echoed these sentiments. She concluded it by addressing Hybe’s chairman Bang Si-hyuk: “Let us now meet not in the courtroom, but in the space of creation”.
BBC
