Yellow Bee was a girl group that debuted in the 3rd generation of K-Pop, back in 2017.
The group originally consisted of Berry, Boyeon, Rozy, Seona and Somee. However due to things that will be mentioned in this thread, the lineup frequently changed. Yellow Bee debuted with their first digital single "Hiccup" on November 23rd, 2017. On June 7th, Addiction Entertainment made an announcement via their Instagram account that Yellow Bee would be changing all of the members. They disclosed that the former members had withdrawn their contracts with the company and that the group will have a completely new line-up ahead of their upcoming comeback in late June.
In 2020, Addiction Entertainment notified fans that Yellow Bee would go on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that their upcoming single, originally scheduled for June would be postponed. This is after the group had already been mostly inactive since the first half of 2019. On July 12th, Addiction Entertainment released a statement on their Instagram revealing that Yellow Bee had officially disbanded. Addiction Entertainment further stated, "But with member B carrying on her rather slutty lifestyle, plus the other members being unable to come to an agreement, we’ve decided that the group cannot stay together." The statement was highly controversial and criticized on several news outlets for 'slut shaming'. Addiction Entertainment later edited the Instagram post to remove certain information and was left at "personal issues and differences between the company and members" as a reason. Despite this, Addiction Entertainment later deleted all posts from their Instagram.
Shortly after this incident, Ari took to her own Instagram account on July 31 and revealed that the members were subject to neglect, exploitation, sexual harassment and sexual assault by the company staff. She said that a former manager had said things to them like, “I’ll give you a baby so let’s go to a motel,” and she also said a staff member had tried to drag a member to a practice room to have sex with her. She described how they’d been touched on their thighs by the staff and she wrote that the members would be called at dawn to serve alcohol to people called investors. She also described how they were never paid and neglected during promotions, forcing the members to sometimes pay for costumes, shoes, and video editing on their own, and they had to promote in Japan without any staff. Ari has also acknowledged that this was only a tiny portion of the things they had been subjected to. Also it appears in messages posted by other former members since, that the original lineup who were barely of age when they debuted also experienced similar things. She wrote, “This inappropriate treatment is why we said we would quit the group, not because of a member’s promiscuous behavior.”
Quote from The Company Tried to Justify the Behaviors Days Later on Aug 4th, 2020Display MoreFirst, thank you for showing much love and interest in Yellow Bee and Addiction Entertainment. We are issuing this statement to share our official stance regarding the incidents. We met with four Yellow Bee members, excluding member B, and we are issuing the statement that was written with their agreement.
First is the incident that happened about a year ago. It occurred at an event venue. There was a family in the audience who had a child. She said that when she saw the child, she said, ‘I want to have a cute child like that when I get married in the future,’ and the manager standing next to her had heard and said that rude remark.
The manager said that it was a joke, but we could not just move past it as it was a serious issue, so our company severely reprimanded him at the time. However, we did not tell the members when we took care of the issue. That manager left the company a year ago.
Next, we will address the incident of sexual harassment. This case is related to a music video producer named Yoon. Yoon is not an agency staff member. He has never worked as an employee of the agency, and he is also someone who has caused a lot of damage to our company as well.
There were a lot of work-related matters to talk about it and we had a desk empty in the office, so he asked if he could use the desk. We permitted it for the sake of the production of a better music video. That would be why the Yellow Bee members misunderstood and thought he worked for the agency.
Many people who saw the music video said it looked “cheap” and asked, “Did you film it on a rooftop?” but we had no choice. It had been decided that Yoon would film the MV and he had only sent the MV cue sheet. There was no feedback two to three days before the filming was to begin, so our agency directly called the music video director. However, the director replied that Yoon had said he would pay them a deposit but they hadn’t received anything at all, so they said the filming was cancelled. The members’ debut date had already been announced and there were articles about it, so we ended up filming the MV in a rush.
We want to say more about Yoon, other than the MV, but since the important thing is the sexual harassment incident, we will just talk about the main topic. At the time, the agency director and a female manager were there. They did not see the sexual harassment take place. We did not even imagine that Yoon would do that sort of thing in front of people, and we think it was a large mistake to have not been paying attention to the members.
The members went to stop him when he was bringing her to the practice room, and after that, people including the agency director and manager cursed him out and there was a fight. This happened after the members had gone home, and since it was an unpleasant matter, we did not tell the members that there had been a fight. So it’s possible that the members could have thought that the agency hadn’t taken any measures in response.
Rather than assigning blame in this matter, our agency feels great responsibility over being unprepared for this kind of incident. We express our deep apologies to the Yellow Bee members who experienced mental anguish, the fans, and to everyone who may have experienced discomfort.
Company's Aftermath
In the aftermath, many people took offence to them claiming that the public had taken an interest in the company when the interest was only in the artists themselves who were the ones singing and performing as Yellow Bee.
The company quickly tried to divert attention to the fact that they were auditioning for a new boy group, and on December 8th, 2020 the label rebranded its name and profile photo in Be the max Entertainment removing also all previous references to their old name. On December 14th, 2020 they revealed a new dance team called Holika and less than a week and a half later on December 22nd, 2020 they announced that they would be holding online auditions for their upcoming new girl group. The label was trying very hard to go into damage control. On March 17th, 2021, they revealed their trainees for the new girl group called Hoxy and that in addition to the members lineup, announced they are preparing to debut in July 2021, and well, they never did. All predebut practices and performances of the members who were set to be in Hoxy have since been completely erased, and any attempts to archive them in the wayback machine have been taken down by the company.
On June 18th, 2022, they announced their new trainee boy group by revealing the first two members Sol as the leader and then Siwoo, then also stated that Siwoo will make their debut within this year. In addition they also introduced their performance girl group Harley Quinn on the same day.
On December 28th, 2022, it was announced announced that all the members of the trainee group Be on New, except Siwoo, left the company, announcing also that Siwoo will be debuting as a soloist in June 2023, instead of when originally planned. M Flow Entertainment teamed with them to produce the boy group Hashtax, who debuted in late 2023. On May 2nd of this year though, the members of that group would end up also leaving in a mass walkout, except for the members King and Louis who are not bound to Be the Max, only M Flow Entertainment.
On November 29th, 2023, it was announced that Be the Max Entertainment would again try to debut a new girl group, this time in the first half of 2024. Initially, they were introduced as Partyence and had five unrevealed members, however, in early February 2024, they had changed their group name to I:mond and now had four pre-debut members.
On February 7th, Be the Max Entertainment revealed the members as: E-seol, Miku, A-hyeon, and Youngwon. They made their debut on June 4th, 2024 with the single album "We Are Gravity". Be the Max Entertainment has also privatized all of their operations and keeps their new groups' socials on very strict lockdown.
We shall have to see how they handle I:mond, as all of their former groups have walked out in mass walkouts due to mistreatment and abuse.
Where are the Yellow Bee Members?
Former members Annie and Ari formed the duo MANITO under Shin Media Entertainment after the group's disbandment. They re-debuted with the single album "토리토리 도토리" on September 18, 2021. However, the duo presumably disbanded in 2022.
Ryuhee, Soye, and Ari (under the stage name Haru) formed the new girl group January in May 2022 along with a new member Taehee. They opened their official Instagram account on May 28, 2022. In July 2023, Haru left the group along with Taehee, while Annie and Seolha (under her birth name Hyunyoung) joined the group for their debut on July 20, 2023 with the single album "Remember". They have since been inactive for the last year. All of the members who were in the final lineup before disbandment of Yellow Bee, are still in contact it seems.
and when 
Sadly 
