[theqoo] GFRIEND MEMBERS TALKING ABOUT THE SHOCKING CONTRACT TERMINATION

  • Big Issue, Kim Sojung (leader Sowon)'s interviewAVvXsEgM_9ajbbF0GmMjfoj9mtRMcHt59uYKxZvtH0lvzilmlIfDLDHRuhn6H56-k9teW_VkMAyI8uAATR-r32qxjZFqA6uCMNQ5SyZuJQSaP9zRi1HBdv8JFP7eMipdFvOSbNMuLLaPTzNQ3LQmfKS82TQjCi1LF2WlJ0aynO7PgLV27eFqBesVe7EFht-6=s16000
    (t/n: translated below)



    AVvXsEjKXgodCPXBpTdk-s5Fphm_xH-jVZIMIJrpfO8_BsD1S9hyuysvehkyXNOYJeBZBaLfsRd3EJXTXIIzXUCQfXGBhHicI0oDTXPVk27NbwRTJBa-gL8pQPREa6HiyL-o1-J42VZ_N8-oqrWiffu2jDc0qap2U3VStcOKjqkC5c8tLDW8SJyt9FGGf7l6=s16000

    AVvXsEj202CqFbBSPLiAyPO3_ZI6jPfICxoEqgjWL6Qzw58kDkKXBEQvddXvwNM9m-jDVtmqLirwUVqt8y1cX1DhTjK5W5zo43dz8N-rO2lAd9ncw6FIqJg7hHjji4QiKqdCS3up2mkP_6Op_6eKpfKiBZakoYq5I31HCSO_WCha6QX0ZItetGVR-N97IpPl=s16000
    "Ever since I turned 21, we spent almost all of my past 8 years together with Gfriend. It's not easy to just part ways with this period.
    First of all, me and the members don't consider this as a group disbandment. However, it's true that it hard for me to organize my feelings over this.
    Because it was such a shocking/out of the blue news. I've always planned to become an actress and thought about its before, but never expected that time to be right now.
    I hard a hard time parting ways [with Gfriend] but I need to continue living my life, and I need to build my road, I can't just keep on struggling. Of course, it took time to start seeing this situation in a more rational way. Right now, almost a year has past, and the members have all accepted our fate and got adjusted to it. Actually, I think I'm the one who got adjusted to it the least."


    SCAN VIVIZ SinB (t/n: we will just translate the commentary)
    AVvXsEgJZ9QgiP5qC71bYLqaq1ReAYzu3gMY5TljATAS_3a2O3A6HsCyqGfGZ4LkrfmZkcHP3ENEj1toOFUdDOtRN9dyAAmBvEa6yDRC7iOduBZNAiHmzhXE-PFSayJYjRAxQjpdHR04U6qX02x61L1AYfZGJnJYSXxDIqRTlxUBo6ga3LID-zO7bvuwDFvI=s16000
    'I seriously didn't know that this would be our final promotion..
    I couldn't tell [the fans] 'we're not doing this anymore, Gfriend isn't renewing the contract anymore'. So actually, one month before the disbandment article went out, if you watch the Vlive we did together, you'd realize that the members were crying. The fans were cheering us on the video saying 'unnies, please don't cry'.
    We thought that we wouldn't cry on the day that the article was coming out, but we cried so much...We were living 3 by 3 in a dorm, I was with Sowon unnie and Eunha unnie? In the morning, when we saw the contract termination article, we all came out from our rooms at the same time and started crying.... We thought we wouldn't be crying, but we were all crying.
    It was especially hard for me last year, we were trying to not make it obvious in front of the fans, seriously it was such a hard time for all of us. I never knew I could cry so much. I thought I have cried every tear in my body last year, I think that Gfriend will come back together someday and release an album together"


    original post: here


    1. Gfirend needs to reunite as a group in the future...


    2. Seriously why did Hybe dissolve Gfirend? There must've been something they tried to achieve by doing this? Otherwise why would they do it..


    3. Hybe is a mess themselves, but I seriously can't understand Source Music. When you see how Nu'est disbanded (of course, looking at the contract renewal probability rationally, and how the market has changed), Pledis has taken care of ending things in the best way possible. But Source Music became a big company thanks to Gfriend, so I can't help but wonder why they acted like that.. No but thinking about this, Pledis also terminated Pristin in a thug way, what is their issue?


    4. Both Hybe and Source Music suck. Seriously terminating someone who've worked or you for 8 years and just cutting them off like that is beyond unmannerly. If they were regular employees, they could've filed for unfair dismissal..


    5. They shifted all the manpower towards Le Sserafim and Hybe shifted their investment to Le Sserafim. Of course, Bang Sihyuk is the general manager, but Gfriend's termination has nothing to do with himㅋㅋㅋ Le Sserafim was mediaplayed by Hybe as their first girl group indeed, but the ones who were in charge of renewing Gfriend's contract was Source Music after all.


    6. I still can't understand this. They were delivering good results and they were all working towards a common purpose. The fandom was also strong and they had a good relationship between them. They were definitely not considered flops, so I don't understand the disrespectful termination? Seriously those f*ckers are beyond comprehension... You can tell just from watching Queendom that these girls will always be filled with love for their group. They will surely reunite one day, but because of that thug company, they will never be able to use Gfriend's name


    7. What a trash company, do they think they'll able to remake a group as good as Gfirend?


    8. Anyone can tell that the termination was done dirtily, why are there so many company shielding bugs claiming that Gfriend wanted to disband and didn't want to renew? You guys are doing all this just to claim that Le Sserafim is Hybe's first girl group and pretend that you never knew Gfriend happened?????


    9. They did all this just to release Le Sserafim? Seriously those bast*rds


    10. Disbanding Gfriend to release a right-wing and a school violence offender

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • This is really a bizarre situation. Companies usually fight tooth and nail to get their artists resign in kpop. Here we got SoMu that went like yeah by the way guys you are fired.

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • Their disbandment was indeed out of the blue

    It's not sad that it was out of the blue to public, it's sad that it was out of the blue to the members too.

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • 2. Seriously why did Hybe dissolve Gfirend? There must've been something they tried to achieve by doing this? Otherwise why would they do it..


    Yeah it's called saving money.

    If they were smart they would have fired the guy in charge who caused Source's money problems in the first place (and who is probably definitely making way more money than all the GFriend members combined), but he's still the CEO and will always have a job because he's Bang PD's best friend. :pepepizza:

  • Everyone assumed the 3 member who did not join Viviz wanted out anyway


    I guess with the new interview its clear that none of them wanted out?

    They were also not given alot of notice about the disbandment


    SoMu is kinda of a mess

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • 2. Seriously why did Hybe dissolve Gfirend? There must've been something they tried to achieve by doing this? Otherwise why would they do it..


    Yeah it's called saving money.

    Gfriend was still in the green


    They were by no means a group that meant loss for the company

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

  • at this point it's pretty much sure that HYBE didn't want to renew their contract so Source music can focus on their new GG only

    I think so too. From the outside it seems like debuting another GG and keeping GFriend don't seem like hard work since Source Music is swimming in money rn but maybe (just speculation on my part) they want to rebrand and focus on this new girl group only (which obv don't make things better). It's a dick move that I can see happening.

  • Personally I slightly doubt that. Just my personal thoughts on it but Source weren't doing well(probably not GFs fault) and with their albums selling about 80-90 thousand only half decent Spotify, Youtube and Apple Music performance and a down turn in Korean digitals and no ability to tour thanks to covid....


    You could see coming to the end they were spending the bare minimum on Gfriend and it makes sense...at their level the profit was likely not very big, if at all present. With how much it allegedly cost to film, record, package and promote and comeback in Kpop these days their numbers just didn't seem to add up to it.

    True, and with upcoming contract renewals, the girls would be in a better position to negotiate, which, of course, would further sour the deal for HYBE. They redistributed their resources from a mid-successful project at the latter stage of their careers to the potential of greater gain.

  • 2. Seriously why did Hybe dissolve Gfirend? There must've been something they tried to achieve by doing this? Otherwise why would they do it..


    Yeah it's called saving money.

    hahaha unfortunately Source's debt grew 2 million won in 2021 is now 14 billion won.

    So they didn't save anything, they lost a lot.

  • Personally I slightly doubt that. Just my personal thoughts on it but Source weren't doing well(probably not GFs fault) and with their albums selling about 80-90 thousand only half decent Spotify, Youtube and Apple Music performance and a down turn in Korean digitals and no ability to tour thanks to covid....


    You could see coming to the end they were spending the bare minimum on Gfriend and it makes sense...at their level the profit was likely not very big, if at all present. With how much it allegedly cost to film, record, package and promote and comeback in Kpop these days their numbers just didn't seem to add up to it.

    It is that the problem of Source was never the sales of Gfriend, the problem is that Gfriend is the only income that Source has, in Source there are no famous producers or some extraordinary management system, they could scale to be a large company back in 2018 but they decided to be acquired which limits their growth even more, for Hybe Source it is only a "girl group specialist" which makes it a division of Hybe more than a company, it would be best for Source to disappear now.

  • If this is how they were selling, it’s just right to disband them. Hybe is a corporation and selling below 100k is such a flop. It feels like they are like milking the issue after a yr to get some sympathy & perhaps an acting gig? 😂I also dont like them — i just watched queedom 2 & they look like some annoying & insecure unnie. And I dont find them pretty too. Hybe did the right thing to kick them out & develop their own.

    Personally I slightly doubt that. Just my personal thoughts on it but Source weren't doing well(probably not GFs fault) and with their albums selling about 80-90 thousand only half decent Spotify, Youtube and Apple Music performance and a down turn in Korean digitals and no ability to tour thanks to covid....


    You could see coming to the end they were spending the bare minimum on Gfriend and it makes sense...at their level the profit was likely not very big, if at all present. With how much it allegedly cost to film, record, package and promote and comeback in Kpop these days their numbers just didn't seem to add up to it.

  • I agree, I think there's a lot of 'ow poor me' going on from their fans too. Like HYBE is probably the biggest entertainment company in Korea right now and everyone of their acts is selling a huge amount and have pretty good streaming numbers too. I think if Gfriend had a bigger more active fanbase where they could sell 400 thousand copies and realistically do tours again HYBE may have kept them on.


    But it's pretty evident they held almost 0 value as a group. Even Viviz are doing pretty dismal right now so releasing GF was the right move on HYBE/Source's end.

    Allkpop and punching down on Gfriend, name a more iconic duo

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!