A SECOND KOREAN K-pop star has quit the music industry over a growing sex scandal. 

Jung Joon-young (30) has admitted to filming himself having sex and sharing the footage without his partners’ consent. 

In the space of just two days, singer-songwriter Jung and singer Seungri (29) have both announced their retirements from the music industry over the growing scandal. 

Seungri, whose real name is Lee Seung-hyun, is embroiled in a sex-for-investment criminal investigation.

Both singers were members of the same chatroom where Jung and others shared illicit content of at least 10 women. Jung has been charged by police for illegal filming and leaking visual material.

I admit to all my crimes,” he said in a statement. “I filmed women without their consent and shared it in a social media chatroom, and while I did so I didn’t feel a great sense of guilt”. 

“More than anything, I kneel and apologise to the women who appear in the videos who have learned of this hideous truth as the incident has come to light”.

‘Ideal cultural exports’

South Korea has been tackling an epidemic of so-called “molka” or spycam videos -mostly of women, secretly filmed by men.

K-pop stars generally cultivate clean-cut images and are actively promoted by the South Korean government as a key cultural export.

Many face pressure to look and behave perfectly in an industry powered by so-called “fandoms” – groups of well-organised admirers at home and abroad who spend enormous amounts of time and money to help their favoured stars climb up the charts and attack their perceived rivals.

Lee Moon-won, a popular culture critic in Seoul, has said that the multilingual Seungri – who has multiple business interests – was popularly seen as “ideal cultural export”. 

“Most of his fans would agree that Seungri is an exceptionally hard working star,” Lee has said. 

“On top of his singing career, he somehow mastered Japanese and Chinese, which made him a very useful member whenever [he] visited those countries”. 

“Learning two foreign languages while being a K-pop star is definitely not an easy thing”.

Seungri was interviewed by police last weekend over accusations he lobbied potential investors by offering them the services of prostitutes at nightclubs in Seoul’s Gangnam district.

The 29-year-old is also linked to a police investigation into Burning Sun – a nightclub where he was a public relations director. Staff there are alleged to have filmed women with hidden cameras and used alcohol and drugs to sexually assault them.

Comments are closed as legal proceedings are ongoing. 

© AFP 2019