K-pop boy band Seventeen member Mingyu has sorted out another school violence controversy that allegedly happened when he attended a “hagwon,” a Korean term meaning a private academy or cram school.
Last Feb. 28, Pledis Entertainment issued a statement to say that the claim that Mingyu “abused a classmate with a disability is completely false.”
The mother of Mingyu’s classmate resolved the issue by saying that “that the student was in fact on very good terms with the artist .”
Pledis Entertainment issued another statement on March 12 regarding another person’s online post claiming that they and Mingyu attended the same private academy and during which they became a victim of Mingyu’s verbal violence and sexual jokes.
The agency said Mingyu and the author of the post have resolved their misunderstanding and the poster does not want Mingyu to leave Seventeen or to be suspended from any activity.
Here is the complete statement by Pledis Entertainment about Mingyu:
“We would like to provide some additional information regarding an online post pertaining to when Mingyu, a member of Seventeen, was a student.
“Pledis Entertainment had many conversations with the writer of the online post, which contained experiences at the after school class that the poster attended with the artist and ascertained additional facts of the issue.
“After going through this process, the artist and the poster agreed to resolve the misunderstandings and put the issue to rest.
“The writer of the online post experienced a series of personal events unrelated to the artist while attending middle school and uploaded the post to make them known to the public. The post also included what happened during the after school classes at the time.
“The artist said he did joke around with his male classmates at the after school class, but never bullied nor tried to embarrass any specific student. He did however, offer his sincere apologies if the poster, in any way, felt uncomfortable or suffered due to his actions.
“The poster accepted the artist’s apology and insisted that the poster did not want the issue to lead to the suspension of the artist’s activity or the artist leaving the group from the very first conversation held with Pledis Entertainment.
“We have shared this statement with the poster in advance and the poster confirmed and agreed to the release of the statement. We sincerely hope that the writer of the post does not experience further harm due to any disputes--big or small--over the issue.
“We have contacted everyone involved in the post who could be identified and brought the conversation to a close. We are also currently looking into other matters which involve parties that are difficult to identify. We will provide an update with a separate notice on this issue at a later date.”