Loona controversy receives major backlash from fans

Blockberry Creative, the company that K-Pop girl group Loona is signed under, is facing a lot of backlash over the mistreatment of members and removing Kim Jiwoo (Chuu) from the group. 

Kim Jiwoo, one of the most popular members of Loona, was officially kicked out of the group on Nov. 25. The company made an announcement, saying that the member abused her power and mistreated the staff. However, after the announcement of Jiwoo’s dismissal, nine other members attempted to terminate their own contracts. This would leave the group with two members, instead of the original twelve. 

Blockberry Creative denied their termination of contracts and as of right now, it has been announced that the group will be having a comeback without all 12 members. This has caused fans to boycott the company and demand for an apology towards Jiwoo as well as allowing the other members to leave the group. 

This has caused lots of previous situations and videos of staff mistreating the members to resurface and gain a lot of attention, from the fans of the girl group as well as other onlookers. K-Pop fans have been quick to spread awareness and stand by the girl group and demand a response coming from the company. Still, no response has been released and fans will continue to boycott Blockberry.

Since the announcement of Kim Jiwoo’s mistreatment towards staff, people that she worked with have come out to speak about the situation. One of the staff members that worked directly with Jiwoo stated; “Power abuse, that’s really funny. Even when it was tiring for Chuu, she was someone who worried in case the staff wouldn’t get paid. Once I got frustrated and said, ‘Hey, Chuu. Worry about yourself first.’ She’d say that having gone through this herself and knowing how hard it is, she couldn’t bear seeing that. Everyone knows she didn’t have proper care. Regardless, she’ll be fine since she treats others so well.” (Translation from allKpop). 

Jiwoo has also spoken up to defend herself from the allegations put on her by Blockberry.

 “Hello, this is Chuu. Thank you so much for your concern and comfort. As I have not received any contact regarding this series of situations or know anything about them, I’m currently grasping the situation, but what I’m sure of is that I haven’t done anything that would be shameful to my fans.” The member posted to her Instagram.

 “In the future, as my position is decided, I will share another statement. Thank you so much for your concern and for trusting in me,” (Translation from Soompi).

Currently, the company has not given any more information on how they plan to move forward with eleven members and fans are upset and worried for the remaining members of Loona.