Actor and singer Kim Kibum, 33, has revealed the reason why he decided to leave K-pop boy band Super Junior.
He debuted in Super Junior in 2005 but stopped joining group activities in 2009 and eventually left Super Junior and SM Entertainment in 2015 when his contract expired.
In an Instagram post he made on Aug. 20, 2015, Kibum said his contract with SM Entertainment ended on Aug. 18, and wrote, "2015 august 18th. Finished with S.M. ent. Lets begin my new life! Thank you SM who has been with me all this time.”
Kibum recently uploaded a video on his YouTube channel titled “I Will Come Clean About It_ What Happened Back Then?!” that showed him and Super Junior member Heechul having a drink and discussing what happened.
He said he became a trainee under SM Entertainment in 2002 and Heechu said they debuted as a 12-member group known as Super Junior 05. Kyuhyun became the group’s 13th member in 2006.
“We are originally Super Junior 05 so us two would only participate that year and leave afterwards. But the group was so successful that it went on the next year,” Heechul said.
He told Kibum, “You would get so nervous whenever we would record. You would put a pen in your mouth and all that. After practice and after recording, you would be so down because honestly, you were not a great singer.”
“I suck at it,” Kibum admitted, to which Heechul replied, “Kibum kept saying, ‘Nobody should hear me sing.’”
According to Kibum, “I felt like dying, it was so embarrassing. I was like, ‘Can you take me out of the song?’ That’s why they did later on.”
This was the reason why he left Super Junior and pursued acting.
“I raised my hand and said, ‘I’m going to leave the group.’ I just wanna focus on acting,” said Kibum, adding that in the group, “Some are good, some are bad.”
Kibum lived in California when he was young and he revealed that he was recruited to be a trainee of SM Entertainment.
“There’s this LA Korean Tower Festival that’s held every October. Back then, all I would do is stay home, or go to school or the church. I participated in the Friday worship service in church,” he said.
He added, “We were gonna get tteokbokki at the festival but I got lost on my way. (The agent) came up and said, ‘Can I take a picture of you?’ She took the photo and gave me her business card. I asked my friends and they all thought it was a fraud. That’s why I forgot about it.”
He said Lee Soo-man, the founder of SM Entertainment, “lived in the same building as me. His parents were on the fifth floor and we were on the second floor” in Los Angeles.
“I was waiting for the bus in the parking lot. He was on his way to golf. I couldn’t meet him directly but he wrote down the number on the car and called the agency in Korea. So I flied over here (Korea),” he said.
He added, “I was recruited twice. I felt like this is something worth trying. I got a second call.” Before debuting in Super Junior in 2005, Kibum debuted as an actor in the Korean drama “April Kiss” in 2004.
“I’ll always cheer you on, go Super Junior,” Kibum wrote in the video.