Kim Woo-seok
Let’s start with Kim Woo-seok. Even though he is becoming a popular K-pop idol, he was still involved in several scandals. He was accused of sexually harassing the female K-pop idol Jeon So-mi. It all happened when Jeon So-mi and Kim Woo-seok were the MCs for SBS’s The Show in 2016. From a backstage video, we could see Kim Woo-seok and Jeon So-mi standing right next to each other, but people accused Kim Woo-seok of intentionally waving his hand towards Jeon So-mi’s chest. Kim Woo-seok’s agency denied the accusation, and so did the show’s producer. But still, people were making malicious comments about Kim Woo-seok, even calling him a pedophile because So-mi was just 15 years old at that time. Not only that, Kim Woo-seok was also involved in violation scandals. There was a compilation video of Kim Woo-seok being caught in violating acts towards his teammates, such as during a certain livestream he was being kinda rough by grabbing his teammates’ collars or even hitting them with a plastic bottle. Some netizens thought that Kim Woo-seok was really rough, however other people also thought he was just joking around. But as time went by, Kim Woo-seok amazed people with his talent and visuals, which helped him become one of the most popular trainees in Produce 101. In addition, the fans also chose him as one of the Top 3 Visual in Produce 101. Despite all of those negative rumors, Kim Woo-seok proved that he could shine brightly with his own talent and hard work!
Ha Min-ho
Ha Min-ho, who came from The Vibe Label agency, was reportedly involved in the sexual harassment of underage girls. It was all revealed in a bunch of chatroom captures of Ha Min-ho’s account with another girl who asked him to hang out, and he also said the girl had sex with him, as well. Ha Min-ho also reportedly asked an underage girl to hang out right after school ended, and invited her to his house. Then he asked the girl to delete those conversations so his manager couldn’t check up on him. Not only that, Ha Min-ho also changed his social media account name to Yu Seon-ho, who was another of the Produce 101 trainees at the time. Moreover, there was another rumor that Ha Min-ho sexually harassed with his ex-girlfriend in middle school. Not only that, the girl also confessed that he bullied her. Due to those scandals, Ha Min-ho left Produce 101 and his contract with The Vibe Label also ended. The agency made statements of apology for the scandals, and said they were sorry for everyone involved who might be have been hurt by Ha Min-ho’s inappropriate behavior. With regard to the report that Ha Min-ho changed his name from Ha Min-ho to Yu Seon-ho as was being reported, The Vibe Label denied the rumor, saying it was a way for Cube Entertainment to target Yu Seon-ho. However, it was a misunderstanding and just a little joke between friends. After Ha Min-ho left the show and his agency, he was posted an official statement of apology in his Instagram account. As for the outline, he was apologizing for those controversies. He also acknowledged himself in the past as someone who was immature and inconsiderate. But he also clarified that he never called female students sluts, and he hadn’t been sexually harassing underage girls, either.
A post shared by 하민호 (@min.h_o13) on Jun 19, 2017 at 11:19pm PDT
Lim Si-woo
Lim Si-woo came from JYP Entertainment, and surprised netizens when he decided to leave Produce 101. Netizens started wondering about the truth behind his departure, since he didn’t give any real explanations for it. It was only said that Lim Si-woo left the show for personal reasons. It also made people start to share their speculations about Lim Si-woo. Some of them thought that probably Lim Si-woo had been involved in some scandals in the past, or even worse, they thought that Lim Si-woo didn’t have any talent to continue his journey in the show. However, some netizens defended him, as well. They asked those netizens who were bad-mouthing him to respect his decisions, since there was no official statement about the truth behind Lim Si-woo’s departure except for saying it was personal.
Park Yuri
Park Yuri from Produce 101 was also involved in several controversies while he was a contestant on the survival show, earning him a lot of malicious comments due to his actions. He was from ESteem Entertainment, which was SM Entertainment’s modeling agency. It was reported that Park Yuri was ‘rasist’ with his school friends, which also meant that he would ‘rate’ someone based on their physical appearance and bluntly say if he thought that someone’s physical appearance wasn’t really good. Park Yuri also showed inappropriate manners. While he was performing Childish Gambino’s song, he used the world ‘nigga’ and never apologized. The reason why he didn’t apologize was because he was a fan of Childish Gambino. However, the word itself is still highly charged and offensive to many people. Aside from that, Park Yuri was caught underestimating iKON’s Bobby. It was revealed when people were commenting that Yuri looked similar to Bobby, but Yuri didn’t seem to be pleased. It turns out that he used to post comparison pictures of him and Bobby with the hashtag #notmybias. It was also reported that Yuri once said that Bobby wasn’t as handsome as other K-pop idols. While being a Produce 101 trainee, there was a rule from MNET of ‘no social media,’ which meant that the trainees shouldn’t be active in any kind of social media. But Park Yuri was breaking the rules by staying active on Instagram. Not only that, he was caught posting a picture of liquor through his Instagram Story, which was inappropriate behavior for idols. Due to several scandals that have involved him, the netizens also thought that Park Yuri shouldn’t have debuted with other Produce 101 contestants, and they also thought he should have just stuck with being a model.
