Hanni, a member of NewJeans, has given an emotional and tearful testimony on workplace harassment.
The testimony was part of an inquiry by South Korean lawmakers into workplace harassment.
According to the BBC, Hanni claimed that alleged that entertainment agency Hybe had deliberately undermined her band. She also accused senior managers of the company of purposefully ignoring her.
"I came to the realization that this wasn't just a feeling. I was honestly convinced that the company hated us," she said in her testimony.
Previously, Hanni was called to give evidence last month, after the group went public with allegations about their treatment following the dismissal of their mentor Min Hee-Jin. Min was accused of planning to split from Hybe and take the group with her. She has since denied the allegations labeled against her.
After that, the group took to a YouTube channel where they made the claims of workplace harassment, the BBC reports. In one of the incidents that they detailed, Hanni said that when she greeted the members of another band at their record label offices, a manager had instructed them to "ignore her". She reported the incident, but claims that nothing was done about it.
"On her way out, [the manager] made eye contact with me, turned to the rest of the group and said, 'Ignore her like you didn't see her,'" Hanni said during her testimony.
She also claims that this had happened more than once and that senior members of Hybe had also been the ones to give her the cold shoulder.
"Since my debut [in NewJeans], we ran into a person in a high-up position many times, but they never greeted me when I greeted them," she said.
"I understood from living in Korea that I have to be polite to older people and that's part of the culture - but I think it's just disrespectful as a human being to not greet us, regardless of our professional status. There was a certain vibe [of disrespect] that I felt within the company," Hanni continued.
The NewJeans member further claims that employees of the company had said some nasty things about the group on an app called Blind. What's more, Hanni alleges that Hybe's PR department had contacted a journalist, asking him to downplay NewJeans' achievements in an article about their record sales. The record label has since denied these accusations. Instead, they have insisted that they were attempting to correct a factual error.
Despite this, Hanni claims that the company and NewJeans no longer got along, going as far as to say that "the company hated us."
The current CEO of Ador, Kim Joo-young, has been called to testify. During her time on the stand, she shared that she believes Hanni, but that there has not been any supporting evidence to back up her claims.
NewJeans was founded in 2022 and includes the members Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein. They have gone on to become a global sensation since their founding and have scored hits like "Super Shy" and "OMG."
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