Han Geng, a former Super Junior member, has opened up about his time with SM Entertainment and the band, saying that his contract with the label was akin to “selling” himself.
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Han Geng recently sat down for an interview with Hong Kong TV network Pheonix Television, during which he discussed his contract with SM Entertainment and time as a member of Super Junior. He was notably the K-pop industry’s first Chinese idol at the time of his debut in the late 2000s.
The singer-actor shared that his motivation for signing on with the company was due to his family’s financial situation at the time. “I don’t come from a wealthy family. That’s why I joined SM Entertainment, to make good money from fame,” he said. “I signed a contract with them at the age of 19. It was a 13-year contract.”
“When I was [given] the contract, I thought, ‘Just hurry up and sign it’,” the Han Geng revealed, admitting that he did not read through the contract’s terms and conditions as thoroughly as he should have and described the terms of the contract as “very harsh”
“You can’t do anything for 13 years but serve the company,” he said. “After signing [with SM Entertainment], my dad cried and hugged me. He said, ‘I sold my child to them’. It really was like selling [myself].”
“Management is stricter, and [trainees become] so tired and bitter,” the former Super Junior member said. He then recalled some of the rules that had been put in place during his time as a trainee, such as “‘Don’t use your cellphone’, ‘You can’t be late’, ‘Complete certain tasks’”, with him saying that it was like “slowly hollowed out”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Han Geng also speaks out about the relief he felt after leaving both the band and the company, and returning to his home country. “The first breath I took after I got off the plane, the smell of the air [felt] safe. I just didn’t want to go back [to Korea],” he told the interviewer.
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