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The K-pop world is reeling following the release of Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups, a BBC TV documentary shining a spotlight on the 2019 sex scandal that implicated multiple K-pop musicians.
Produced as part of the BBC Eye series, the documentary hears from the key South Korean journalists involved in uncovering the story, which centers around the explicit group chats engaged in by high-profile stars, detailing instances of alleged sexual predation, prostitution, sexual assault, and the distribution of illegally acquired photos or videos.
Told through the first-person narratives of journalists Park Hyo-sil and Kang Kyung-yoo, Burning Sun details widespread text chains that document sexual assault perpetrated by once-beloved South Korean stars and details the threats and condemnation the journalists received while covering the story. The documentary unearths new details in the case, and touches on South Korea’s broader issue of the spycam plague, in which non-consensual sex videos of women are distributed to websites for a fee.
The damning evidence revisited in Burning Sun has rightfully turned attention to those accused of participating in the group chats. The list includes musicians, actors and Korean idols.
All idols involved in the ‘Burning Sun’ scandal
The idol most directly implicated in the ‘Burning Sun’ scandal is Seungri, the former member of the K-pop band BigBang. The documentary derives its name from the Burning Sun Club, a nightclub partly owned by Seungri in the upscale Le Meridien hotel in Seoul. It’s alleged that Seungri — who formed one-fifth of BigBang before his departure in 2019 — had overseen the nightclub during multiple instances of sexual violence perpetrated on site.
The Burning Sun Club was allegedly the site of multiple sexual assaults, some of which involved drugging the victims, and was also where the non-consensual videos were recorded and later distributed in chat rooms. Seungri was eventually charged for the cases involving him and the nightclub, and served time in prison before his release in Feb. 2023. Also mentioned in the Burning Sun documentary was Jung Joon-young, a popular singer-songwriter, radio DJ, actor and television personality.
Joon-young — who was also a member of the popular band Drug Restaurant — was revealed to have been the creator of a group chat responsible for circulating the images and videos of the date-rape victims, some of which date back to 2015. One of the videos included fellow South Korean celebrity Choi Jung-hoon, a guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as the former frontman of the indie rock band, Jannabi. The contents of the video led to both Joon-young and Jung-hoon being charged with gang rape and sentenced to prison time, though both stars have since been released.
Seungri, Joon-young and Jung-hoon weren’t the only celebrities implicated in the documentary. While he was not charged, rapper and former member of the boy band Highlight Yong Jun-hyung revealed that he had knowledge of the group chats, while CNBLUE bandmate Lee Jong-hyun admitted to viewing some of the explicit videos.
Meanwhile, Eddy Kim, a contestant on the television talent show Superstar K 4, was booked with distributing at least one photo on a text chain, though he avoided prosecution. Elsewhere, singer-songwriter and radio host Roy Kim was accused of sharing non-consensual videos, though not in the group chat created by Joon-young. For her part, Goo Hara — a prominent member of the girl group Kara — played a prominent role in uncovering the group chats, sourcing leads for journalists to report on the case.
Tragically, Goo Hara died by suicide in 2019 at the age of 28. While these stars are the only ones whose names have been explicitly mentioned by Burning Sun, the documentary revealed that there are many more perpetrators involved in the case who remain unidentified to this day. In any case, the documentary and the work of journalists Park Hyo-sil and Kang Kyung-yoo played a pivotal role in highlighting the untouchable status of K-pop stardom in South Korea, though both journalists suffered much scrutiny as a result of their investigations.
One high-profile name to comment on the actions of perpetrators was Lee Hong Ki, the frontman of F.T. Island. The band was once home to Choi Jong Hoon, and when asked on social media about his disgraced former bandmate, Lee Hong Ki said: “I give up.”