ADOR stated they don’t wish for ILLIT and NewJeans to be associated.

Recent developments in the K-Pop industry have intensified scrutiny over ADOR‘s Min Hee Jin after she accused HYBE and its subsidiary BeLift Lab of undermining her group, NewJeans, with their newly debuted girl group, ILLIT. Min claimed that ILLIT’s branding and concept bore a striking resemblance to NewJeans, an allegation she described as a deliberate effort by HYBE to replicate her group’s success.

In an exclusive interview with Hankyung on April 22, 2024, Min expressed concerns that HYBE’s actions were threatening the unique identity and brand value of NewJeans. She alleged that the similarity between the two groups was not a coincidence but a strategy by HYBE, motivated by profit. According to Min, ADOR has made multiple attempts to address these concerns with BeLift Lab but to no avail.

In her statement, Min Hee Jin even says, “ADOR does not wish for NewJeans and ILLIT to be associated in any way. They have no intention of tolerating promotions that label one as a sister group to the other simply because they debuted under a HYBE subsidiary label.”

However, this stance has led to charges of hypocrisy from Korean netizens, who claimed that NewJeans themselves were initially marketed as “BTS‘s sister group,” a tactic employed by HYBE to boost their visibility. Headlines from the time of NewJeans’ debut and their participation in BTS’s “Permission to Dance” music video were cited as evidence of HYBE’s typical promotional strategies that benefit new artists on a viral post on TheQoo.

Netizens argue that Min Hee Jin is now criticizing the very practices that helped establish NewJeans. They claim that leveraging the fame of established groups like BTS to introduce new artists is a common and effective strategy in K-pop, one that ADOR itself has utilized.

• “But overseas, junior groups from the same agency totally benefit from the spillover effect.”
• “This is really unprecedented, utterly shameless.”
• “Send the investors off with nothing.”
• “It’s the epitome of hypocrisy. They promoted the trainee group as BTS’s little sister group, even having them appear in a BTS music video.”
• “The hypocrisy is severe. And what does that have to do with breach of trust?”
• “With NewJeans’ comeback right around the corner, the agency is being incredibly reckless.”
• “Wasn’t the idea from the start to benefit from the spillover effect with the music video?”
• “They even appeared in a BTS video…”

• “How many “younger siblings” does BTS have? I remember laughing about it. It’s just ridiculous.”
• “Not to discredit HYBE, but the BTS effect seems bigger than the NewJeans effect.”
• “Aren’t they the only junior idol group that appeared in a BTS music video?”
• “I wouldn’t have watched the music video at all if I wasn’t a fan of HYBE artists.”
• “If you’ve benefited yourself, it only makes sense to promote future junior groups in the same way, right?”
• “Hahaha”
• “Oh my.. I’d sell out too..”
• “What about BTS’s little sister group?????”