In a press conference held on April 25, 2024, ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin made a shocking claim. She claimed that the HYBE CEO had stopped her from promoting NewJeans in order to “confuse the public” for the benefit of their other upcoming group, LE SSERAFIM. Min Hee Jin claimed that HYBE wanted the public to think that LE SSERAFIM was the group she was promoting, in order to give them more buzz.
HYBE has since responded to Min Hee Jin’s claim that they banned her from promoting NewJeans due to LE SSERAFIM on April 26.
“Regarding the claim that we asked Min Hee Jin not to promote NewJeans during the time of debut.
Due to the R&R issue between Source Music and yourself, NewJeans’ debut was delayed, and LE SSERAFIM, which Source Music was planning, ended up debuting first. The two groups’ had consecutive debuts, and there was not enough time to sufficiently promote both of them, so we decided on set periods for their schedules and promotions. In the case of LE SSERAFIM member Sakura, there have been many articles about her transfer to HYBE since before she even signed with us.
In this situation, there was a case where we were worried that information would be leaked about the member composition for NewJeans, if we say that ADOR’s debut team is only made up of rookies, because people already know that Sakura joined Source Music. In order to protect the news value of both groups, we made that request of you, and we also shortened our set period of promotion [for LE SSERAFIM] so that we could start promoting NewJeans.”
— HYBE
You can read more about the original claim by Min Hee Jin below.
Min Hee Jin Claims HYBE CEO Banned Her From Promoting NewJeans Because Of LE SSERAFIM
