Earlier this week, allkpop transcribed and translated the first 58 minutes of the February 27 conference that took place between JYP Entertainment and Hottest fan community representatives regarding Jaebeom’s contract termination. Due to the numerable versions that have been circulating the internet, we’ve recorded all details observed from an audio clip into our transcript in the hopes of giving our readers an uncut translation of the conference.
If you have any doubts about the accuracy & objectivity of this transcript and would like to judge the audio yourself, you can download the full audio file of the conference to follow the discussion and verify the transcript’s details however you’d like.
Again, the first segment of our transcript took up the first 58 minutes; part 2 is 67 minutes.
Q: Excuse me. May I add to my question?
Host: Is this a related question? Then we’ll move on after that.
Q: Junho said that Jaebeom did whatever he had done wrong repeatedly. It also appears that members, for example Junsu, heard about what happened for the first time. Then while Jaebeom was repeating what he had done, did the 7 members have any opportunity to try and correct him or anything?
Taecyeon: To repeat what I said before, we didn’t know. We didn’t know whether that mistake was happening or not, and we found out on January 3rd.
Q: No. It was clearly said that it was a repeated mistake.
Taecyeon: Please ask the question clearly. So you’re asking if it is a repeat offense, why couldn’t we control that? We merely know that it happened repeatedly, and we didn’t know of it happening while it was happening. We just heard on January 3rd that oh, he did this and he did it multiple times, not like we knew it when it as it was happening.
Host: Since we seem to be getting questions for the company as well, we’ll bring in representative Jung Wook of JYPE for questions as well. Please ask questions for the members and the company.
New Q: You said you heard from the company about Jaebeom? So you didn’t hear about it from him directly? Did Jaebeom tell you the story himself?
Junsu: When we heard about what Jaebeom had done, we heard it from the president (JYP) over the phone.
Q: (interrupts) Did Jaebeom tell the members?
Junsu: He did. We couldn’t meet him but he told us over the phone.
New Q: I have a question for the representative. After JYPE promised full and sincere answers to submitted question sheets, multiple fan communities that can be said to be representatives of the fandom sent in question sheets. They sent it in. You never answered those, and so what is the point of this conference when you won’t even answer question sheets? Also, what is the reason behind holding a conference regarding Jaebeom after decision has been made and he has been removed from the group?
Representative Jung Wook (Rep): First, to answer question about question sheets, I personally wrote the official statement. As you’ve read, the announcement was made in late February because of Jaebeom’s personal concerns and request. The time that our fans sent in the questions sheets was around February 12th, and we made the announcement about Jaebeom on the 25th. We couldn’t lie to our fans just 2, 3 weeks before making an announcement about him. That would be deceiving our fans. The company couldn’t lie and say Jaebeom is well in Seattle and is practicing hard and preparing for a return and such. Did you understand that? On the topics of gigantic amount of rumours and personal attacks against our members, the reason why we didn’t run a conference before is because the media sources that you hate, they only release articles focusing on one controversial thing when a conference is done verbally. So we began doing it in writing, but in a situation like this, as you all know, it is a major situation. That is why we decided to run a conference in this way.
New Q: When the September incident happened a lot of rumours surrounded the issue, so please explain what happened back then. Also at the beginning there were talks of the company having control over the members’ Cyworlds. Please explain that.
Rep: This is also the answer to the second question but fans ask, JYPE, why don’t you control the members? Why don’t you control your entertainers? We apologize, but we don’t control our entertainers that much. When our entertainers use Cyworld or blogs I sometimes find that out when browsing through the Internet, and same with trainees. We just warn them, saying, you always have to be careful, you are entertainers so you have to keep control over yourself on everything. That is my job. I’m sorry to fans but I don’t like the word ‘control’ when it comes to entertainers. They are not to be controlled by us; they are humans that are on equal standings. We are sorry to the fanclubs, because if we did control then these guys won’t be sitting here right now. But that is the relationship between the company and the members. To talk about the September incident, I’m sure you went through a lot with us but the situation inside cannot be understood by those that were not in it. The weapon of choice for Jaebeom, I’m sorry to use the word “was,” but was not rapping, dancing, singing or acrobatics. His weapon was his pride. But his pride broke down in less than 20 hours. You might remember how he couldn’t even look at the camera on that day. He couldn’t look at the members or me straight when we came back to the office. We talked a lot, met up every day, talking about a lot of things. Since we have a lot of time today I’ll tell you everything. There is a rumour saying he sat in economy class on the plane because he had to buy the plane ticket himself. But as you know, there were reporters in the airport. They must have wanted to write articles like, “Jaebeom, leader of 2PM, got on business class with a manager, leaving the chaos behind.” I thought of that and that is why I bought him an economy class seat myself. Mister JYP was shocked too when he heard that Jaebeom sat on economy class. There were also talks of eating tonkatsu with leaders of fan communities. We met at a very late time so it wasn’t really a time for tonkatsu. (sound of fans laughing) That was how short on time we were. The last thing Mr. JYP and I told Jaebeom was, “Don’t lose focus. Don’t ever lose your focus.” We ate together, with all the members, and then let him go. What I told him was that 0% and 1% are very different. 0% is nothing, you can multiply whatever number to that but it will still be 0, so compared to that 1% is just so much larger. We didn’t want to tell any of this to outsiders. I know that the fans were in extreme shock. What I was thinking at the moment was that I need to keep all 7 alive. I wanted to give pride back to the kid to whom pride was the weapon. So I wanted to stop all rumours about him as best as I possibly could. I talked with fan leaders from midnight to 6 in the morning. You must not have been able to reach them at that time. Fans say, why? Didn’t you expect 2PM to win the top award at MAMA? I felt that way too. If we didn’t get the top prize, I was going to quit. That is how hard they tried. That was my wish. When the kids said that they would dance even without the leader, the comeback was already decided then. Do you believe everything the media sources say? Do you believe the rumours? I won’t say which media source it was but the article titled, “Jaebeom situation leaves lots of rumours.” The reporter who wrote that was at the airport when Jaebeom left. He was inside the airport. Why doesn’t JYPE play tricks with the media? You all say we control the media every day, right? Media can’t be controlled that easily. We have to deal with 83 media sources. You think that news articles will get pulled down and major portals will block things out when we tell them so, right? It doesn’t work that way. We made a list of media sources that wrote insulting articles on Jaebeom and we still don’t give them any references they can use for reporting. Do you remember when Chansung and Wooyoung wrote on their Cyworld, “Let’s walk together” and “Thank you“? The article that came out and said, “Troublemaking leader and members who defend him.” The media still keeps those reporters and you all trust those articles. I still don’t give anything to write for those reporters. I won’t give them anything until I die.
Q: Talking about Cyworld, sometime ago Wooyoung wrote “I’m frustrated,” and few days ago Chansung wrote “Confused.” Please explain that.
Wooyoung: I failed at controlling my emotions. It is a personal webpage so I wanted to talk truthfully, since it is for talking about my personal stuff. I didn’t say that because I didn’t like fans or anything. You know, sometimes you’re like, ‘ah… I’m so frustrated.’ It was as simple as that. We were trying so hard, practicing, trying to give back to the fans, then… it was because of senseless rumours. Because those rumours, those rumours were so frustrating. I’m not scolding the fans, but I hated what the fans were telling each other. Because they weren’t true. They’re not true and I wanted everyone to understand the reason why we sweat and try so hard in front of the mirrors.
Chansung: About confused. I wrote that a long time ago, and it was because I was confused about something personal. It has nothing to do with this situation, they just happened to happen at the same time.
New Q: When the rep spoke a little while ago, you said you tried your best for Jaebeom. When rumours and news articles came up on Jaebeom’s issue, you never blocked comment section of Internet news articles or anything, but when articles on Taecyeon’s bloody letters came on, the comments got blocked immediately. Fans asked Daum and other portals, why did Taecyeon’s articles get comments blocked and Jaebeom’s didn’t? Daum answered, saying they don’t block comments unless the person of concern or their management company requests for it, they don’t do it themselves. So I want to know why you did it for Taecyeon and not for Jaebeom.
Rep: You should remember how fast articles came out at the beginning of the September incident. Also, regarding blocking comments, I’m ashamed to say this but before that incident, we’ve never requested that before. Our policy is that whoever’s voice it is, we listen to it, so we’ve never really had a policy on requesting comments to get blocked. Also if you see articles regarding JYPE from before, like the Taecyeon situation or recent Jaebeom situation, even if we try to block comments, if the number of articles is overwhelming than it becomes pretty random. Some comment sections get blocked and some don’t. We haven’t really tried it before so we were doing it after checking our policy again, and for a situation like the one right now, not all articles get their comment sections blocked even if we request for it.
New Q: I had mentioned the word ‘control’ before. You said you don’t control entertainers, so that means when a problem happens, like right now, in relation to someone who is not under control, you are not going to be taking any responsibilities?
Rep: To answer that, you might not remember, but in 2008 our company got called out by Fair Trades Commission for a so-called “slavery contract.” The problem was that our contracts included clauses where entertainers had to tell the company where they were going. So we took that out. And the control you mentioned. I don’t know. The reason I used that word is because I don’t really like the word ‘control,’ and instead of controlling and getting controlled, we like to just talk. Talk and talk on the same level. Of course, differences exist for people who talk and listen, like if my father was to talk to me on the same level I still wouldn’t feel his situation. I want to explain it like that…
Q: (interrupts) That wasn’t what I was asking.
Rep: Yeah, no need to understand then.
New Q: I don’t like to use the phrase ‘personal life,’ but the personal life has become the problem. You said it wasn’t under your control? So that means you’re not taking any responsibility for what happened because of that? I’m asking, are you saying because personal life is not under our control we’re not taking any responsibilities for problems that occurred because of the personal life? I’m not asking about contracts.
Rep: I indirectly answered mentioning contract. Entertainers are still people with their own minds, and they are not subordinates of anything. They are humans too… so if they make mistakes, they still have to be responsible for those. That is the first, and for the second part of the question, what makes me really regret is that as I wrote on the statement, when he told me about the problem last winter, I didn’t know about it nor did any member know about it before. (Fan asks something but hard to make out) Entertainers are the first ones that have to take responsibility, of course.
Q: So you’re not taking any responsibilities for things that are not subject to your control.
Rep: If you question broadly then I have no choice but to answer broadly as well. You’re trying to describe an entire situation with the word ‘control.’
Q: You’re saying you’re not taking responsibility for problem that was caused by personal issues.
Rep: What responsibility are you talking about?
Q: Stop putting words in my mouth.
Rep: I’m doing it because you were the first to put words in my mouth. What responsibility are you talking about?
Q: The way Korean society will view Jaebeom from now on, you won’t take responsibility for that?
Rep: I’ll answer that. So this was what people were saying at the beginning…
Q: (interrupts) Sir, please get to the point.
Rep: I’ll answer, I’ll answer. This was what people were saying. What if I were to answer, saying he doesn’t want to come back, his parents don’t want him to come back, his health is not well?
(Sound of fans talking)
Q: I’m asking if you’re going to take responsibility for Jaebeom’s social status and reputation.
Rep: I’m asking because I’m curious whether there is a reason for the company to responsible for that.
Q: Because when the incident happened, Jaebeom was a part of JYPE. So you’re not taking responsibility for being careless when looking after him? Because his personal life is not something you have control over?
Rep: Because entertainers are ordinary people with responsibility over their own lives.
Q: I’m sorry, may I say something? You said personal life on the statement. I know that people like to make stories up and talk and stuff but because you said that word, Jaebeom suffered from furiously absurd rumours and his image is sticking that way. Are you not going to take responsibility for that? You said that, when you were talking about why he was terminated.
Rep: If there was a need to ask me to be responsible then it would be Jaebeom that will ask me.
New Q: We have a situation where rumours surrounding Jaebeom are being created because of an official statement. Does he know that the statement used this type of terminology?
Rep: Yes.
Q: Was a statement including phrases such as “social impact” and “social issue” really necessary, and did Jaebeom agree to the fact that the statement might bring great controversy?
Rep: Yes, he did. Did that answer your question?
Q: This was mentioned when you weren’t here yet, but there are rumours out there not just about Jaebeom but about all members. If you just ignore it because it is not true, the rumour spreads further and it becomes the truth. Many fans are accepting a lot of it to be the truth. Like the tonkatsu thing you said, the community leaders who were there had their personal information leaked and many other things are being accepted as the truth. Any plans on dealing with these rumours? If you can’t stop articles against your entertainers then please at least release articles that go against them. Also, JYPE already lost faith of the fans, and no matter what you wrote on the statement, the fans would have not accepted the fact that Jaebeom isn’t coming back. Why did you have to use the phrases like “problems with personal life” and “social impact” of all things?
Rep: Let me answer the second question first. I’m sure you’re thinking that whatever we said in the statement, you wouldn’t have bought it. We thought the same way. That was one reason. Also, after saying Jaebeom doesn’t really want to come to Korea, the six members perform fine with smiles on… I couldn’t see them become cowards and traitors, because…
Multiple fans: They’re already traitors!
Rep: Excuse me, please show some respect for the guest [audience member] who asked the question. Let me continue. If I just said Jaebeom doesn’t want to come back, and if the six members continued their work with smiles on their faces, the members who didn’t rest one second during the end of the year last year and were trying so hard with the hope that they can once again share their dreams together… why do they have to become traitors? That was the second reason. Third is the company. We can’t lie when we’re officially telling fans important things. Those are the three reasons why.
Q: What about the rumour.
Rep: Ah, sorry. There are two sides to the rumour thing. About rumours being made up by then fans, we can’t really do this or that about fans… doesn’t matter if the fans trust us or not, they’re fans. I don’t think it is wise to create a situation where we are opposing the fans. It is something a company must endure, and we are doing so, but I don’t know what will happen later. We’ve dealt with absurd rumours attacking our entertainers before, but when we catch those that spread them they’re just high school or middle school students. That creates more news, the whole fight against the rumour thing. A lot of ideas are coming up on this matter and we’re considering all of them.
New Q: As the members have been saying, the statement says that on December 22nd, he suddenly made a call to you [the rep]. The members have been saying that they had no idea about it before, which means Jaebeom had been keeping this a secret and then suddenly just called you about it. So was this because he couldn’t hide it anymore or because of his guilty conscience, or were there other external reasons behind his confession?
Rep: He called at around 4PM of December 22nd, and he called three to four times… if you’re really curious, I’ll get you the records from the phone company.
Multiple fans: Yes, please.
Rep: Alright. To tell you whether it was self-motivated or due to external pressure, if I hinted you or told you then you can kind of infer to a conclusion, so, about that… I don’t know. As Nichkhun said, he himself or his family can say anything, but we can’t tell you anything. But it is true that he called me on that day.
New Q: You said the company isn’t responsible for personal lives. However, the statement said that Jaebeom is being kicked because of his personal life. Also, the members said that he repeatedly did whatever he did. So if this is a problem that is big enough to cause termination, then it should have been talked about a long time ago. Nobody knew about this before this was mentioned in the statement. In other words, Jaebeom was really good at taking care of his personal life since nobody knew what he was doing. But the fact that the company is kicking him out for his personal life issues while not taking responsibility for it seems like the company is just making up excuses to get rid of him. Am I wrong?
Rep: Yes, you’re wrong. As Junsu said before, it was repetitive but we all learned about that afterwards, all at once.
Q: So if he was repeatedly doing something, then there must be a victim he was committing wrong to.
Multiple fans: You can’t ask question like that.
Rep: Jaebeom himself may be able to answer that but we can’t.
Q: If it was due to issues with Jaebeom’s personal life like the company is claiming, then neither the company nor the members had any idea about it until December 22nd?
Rep: Yes.
Q: From when he was promoting to December is almost 6 months. He was really good at hiding his personal life during those times?
Rep: Yes.
Q: Right? The company learned about it after the phone call.
Rep: Yes.
Q: Right? So you learned that and that means he was good at keeping his personal life a secret. If he kept it that way there was no need to get terminated due to those issues. His personal life is under fire because it was mentioned in the statement.
Rep: I answered a similar question…
Q: (interrupts) What we want to say is that you’re mentioning his personal life that he was taking good care of so that you can use it as an excuse to kick him out of JYPE, that is what we’re saying.
Rep: I gave three reasons for that before, and I think you’re asking pretty much the same question. We didn’t know until December 21st, we didn’t. Why did he confess on December 22nd when he was so good at taking care of his personal life? I can’t answer that because you can kind of guess what had happened if I told you. Why did I write it on the statement? I answered the three reasons. The members did nothing wrong and they’re victims in a sense. Company couldn’t lie in an official statement. I told you that before.
Multiple fans: We don’t understand you.
Rep: Nobody understood? About my positions?
Multiple fans: We understand.
New Q: I think I need to confirm this again. Even if the September incident did not happen, just the issue that Jaebeom confessed in December, that alone would have gotten him kicked out? Also, would you and all members make the same decision about any other member if they did the same thing? Also even after this conference, some might accept the reality but some might not. There will be people who will still ask, what did Jaebeom do? I mean, some people are even asking 2PM to disband. Even if people can’t accept this, even if fans become violent would you not reveal Jaebeom’s mistake?
Rep: To answer the first question, as I wrote in the statement, I never thought of the September incident as something that will make Jaebeom leave the team or never come back. I still stand by that thought. Both Mr. JYP and I know English. We both know English and the tone of that [MySpace comment] could easily be misinterpreted by some people. But we were preparing for his comeback because we thought that it wasn’t something important enough to decide someone’s future. Secondly, I would have made the decision regardless of the September incident. Wooyoung, Taecyeon, Nichkhun, Chansung, Junho and Junsu, if any of them did the same thing, I would have made the same decision. Third, whatever pressure we get or whatever happened, we won’t reveal what happened.
New Q: You just said that you and Mr. JYP know English. So you must know that the MySpace incident was based on misinterpretation. In order to correct the wrong translation, all you needed to do was ask the experts. I’m not really an expert in English but I’m majoring in English so my professors are. I asked my professor about this, asked them, is this insulting Korea? They said they doubt intelligence level of those that interpret this as insulting. We wanted you or Mr. JYP, those that know English, to go ask an expert and make a public statement about this. Why didn’t you and why didn’t you shield him, that is my question. You also said that it was not something a leader of an idol group needed to drop out over or not be able to work in Korea for or get demanded to commit suicide over… why didn’t you defend him? Company might not be controlling the entertainers but it should be protecting them at least.
Rep: I remember those three days very correctly. Why didn’t the fans shield him back then?
(Sound of fans talking)
Rep: I’m not questioning you. Over those three days, things happened much faster than you all think it did. You will find consistency in what Mr. JYP said on TV show and what is being said in our statements. He didn’t make such large mistake but some people can misinterpret it and it is not like we can choose our level of intelligence. Even people in English-speaking countries can misinterpret things. About those three days, you’ve only seen things from the outside but as we said in the statement, we tried to defend him. To the company, and to 2PM members as well, to us Jaebeom is more important than you think. What hurts us even more is that this week was supposed to be the week that we would hold a conference about his comeback.
New Q: I don’t know what others were thinking back then and I’m sure we all had our ideas, but I thought staying silent was the best way to help. Unless you’re an idiot… I don’t know. I’m not sure what others thought but when I read the MySpace thing, you said you know English. It isn’t like you didn’t learn. Those that went to school would know that he was insulting JYPE instead of Korea. So we thought that the company would take care of it. Also talking about the situation back then, there wasn’t any major statement at the beginning. The company said, well, we all have our relationships; everyone knows what could have stopped the situation from worsening. Did Jaebeom contact us? No. Only JYPE staff could contact him. The Koreans Jaebeom mentioned were the JYPE staff members. All I can say is that the company made mistakes there… I want to know your thoughts on it.
Rep: To answer that, you can ask any member but we did it all together. Secondly, yes, correct. Jaebeom is included. You’re asking about the September incident, right? The solution we came up with was made by everyone. And I’m not saying what we did was right. Like, I don’t want to say the situation got better after 3 to 4 days because we did the right thing. But thankfully it did get better.
New Q: A MySpace comment [by Jaebeom] said that the company asked Jaebeom for a 10-year contract, but he declined that, so you signed an 8-year contract with him. Could you explain that?
Rep: Sure thing. I’ve been searching the Internet for that and it says contracts with unfair lengths will be renewed or something. If you search the Internet it will say, the length of the contract does not determine fairness of the contract. We thought about a 10-year one and tried to go ahead with that, but at the end decided on a 7-year contract.
Q: So the part about 10-year contract is correct?
Rep: It is correct.
Q: What about Jaebeom saying 8 years? Because you just said 7 years?
Rep: We’ve been shortening it, going from 8 to 7.
Q: The point is that Jaebeom’s contract was 8 years long, right?
Rep: 7. Everyone had the same contract.
Q: So everyone got offered 10 years at the beginning.
Rep: Yes. We told them all about 10 years at the beginning.
New Q: You asked the fans why couldn’t you shield Jaebeom, but let me give you an example. There is a Japanese celebrity named Sakai Noriko. She is a drug addict. The representative from her company went on a TV show and kneeled and cried and begged to the Japanese people so that she could continue working. You are the company, Jaebeom came here from the US without knowing anyone and just trusting the company, but the company can’t even defend him. How can we trust the company, and when there are cases like the example I just told you about, how can the company just ignore him and say whatever, just get out. Do you think it is right to just let him go like that?
Rep: You mentioned two things, but the second thing is a bit of a different story. You mentioned the story from Japan but every country is different. I mean, if the same thing were to happen in the US, the celebrity would get sued by the company. The celebrity would get sued and his/her entire family would go bankrupt if it was in the US. Every country is different. The thing I told the fans about shielding was, for example, if someone asked the fans, “Why didn’t you defend him?” then you’d remember what it felt like, right? I would like you to ask the members if the company was really just sitting there ignoring the situation, or was doing something.
New Q: There is a rumour saying that Jaebeom received money for penalty and in return agreed not to work in Korean entertainment industry for next 5 years. If that was not true, then if Jaebeom wanted, although there is some unspeakable problem at the moment, so despite that if Jaebeom decided to come back to Korea but since JYPE couldn’t accept him back so he went to some other entertainment company, would JYPE just watch that happen?
Rep: I’m not sure what penalty you’re mentioning. Jaebeom wouldn’t pay any penalty… because other members are endorsing many companies right now so as someone was asking, what if this happened to another member? Then that member would go bankrupt from paying penalties to the companies that he was endorsing. But since Jaebeom isn’t endorsing any companies there wouldn’t be any…
Q: With the company.
Rep: Jaebeom doesn’t have to pay any penalty to the company. People think that you have to pay millions of dollars when you breach a contract with the entertainment companies but that is not true, and secondly, the contract has been terminated. Whatever he does with others is none of our business.
Q: Speaking of the penalty, you were saying that the contract was 7 years long? And the contract with Jaebeom is over because of his fault, right? Then from our perspective we might think that it is Jaebeom who is to pay penalty to the company.
Rep: No penalty, and we even paid him a share of the profit from when he wasn’t performing with 2PM.
New Q: I would like to ask few more questions about the termination. I want to know when exactly the contract was terminated, and also please tell us about legal rights held by JYPE regarding Jaebeom and the length. I would also like to know profit of up to when was shared with him and when the last of it was paid to him. Lastly, please tell us if there are any dual contracts.
Rep: The contract was terminated yesterday. It was done after yesterday when everything was announced. There is no dual contract and we hold no legal rights of him.
Q: Please tell us about when he was paid.
Rep: We pay out every 3 months. The profit from last October, November and December were paid in January and that is what Jaebeom got.
Q: Could you tell us about the content of contract termination?
Rep: It says, “the contract between two parties is now void.” No other clauses exist.
New Q: (in English) Do you guys have any plans to go to the US and would you be introduced as a 6 member group and do you have plan for new leader?
Taecyeon: There are no plans at the moment. (In English) We don’t have any plans right now so I don’t think we’re gonna have like oh, we’re gonna pick a new member, pick us a new leader or we don’t have anything like that. I don’t think we’re gonna pick a new leader or go to US… we were a 7 member group but now we’re 6, we’re not gonna say that. It’s always been decided. We are 6 now.
New Q: (in English) I was wondering if that whole MySpace comment, if that didn’t happen at all, would Jay be kicked out of 2PM?
Rep: (in English) By this matter?
Q: (in English) Yeah. Well, if the MySpace didn’t happen, then this whole controversy wouldn’t have happened either?
Rep: (in English) Yeah, sure, sure.
Q: (in English) So he wouldn’t have been kicked out.
Rep: (in English) Yeah.
(Note: The English speaking fans have an accent and the JYP rep does not appear to be fluent in English so both parties may not have meant what they said.)
New Q: Can’t there be conflicts between members and the company? Sometimes the opinions of the seven members and the company are not the same, right? What do you do when that happens?
Taecyeon: Regarding what?
Q: Everything. The Jaebeom situation or the conference, opinions can be conflicting. I think some might say oh, I don’t want to do that. What do you do in that case?
Taecyeon: There haven’t really been any serious disagreements, and even if they do happen, the [idea of the] company forcing their opinion [on us] is just ridiculous and we’re not the kind of people who would just obey them. If a disagreement exists then we talk it out.
New Q: Members agreed on the termination on January 6th, but you officially terminated him yesterday. You must remember how you requested the fans on January 14th to not sell any Jaebeom-related merchandises. So since the contract is over, can we be selling anything related to Jaebeom now? Or can members of AOM make merchandises related to Jaebeom and sell them?
Rep: About the story about January 14th, I heard about that afterwards as well. Only very few people within the company were involved in that and only very few people know about that exactly since it is related to his privacy. About the contract thing, because Jaebeom is part of the AOM crew, the company has no right to control that.
Q: So you don’t care about merchandise?
Rep: We don’t care.
Taecyeon: About the merchandise, it belongs to Jaebeom. You need permission from Jaebeom himself. Why are you already coming up with ideas about selling them?
Q: No, I didn’t say I was selling…
Taecyeon: You just said selling.
Q: Selling is not the point, I was just asking whether I could do it or not.
Taecyeon: Yeah, ask Jaebeom.
(Sound of fans talking)
New Q: I have a little more to ask about contract termination. Although Jaebeom is not a part of 2PM right now, he was with them in 1st and 2nd single. The six members will continue as 2PM, right? So when 2PM sings songs from the first and second singles in like yearend award ceremony or something, there are parts of Jaebeom in those songs, right? Does Jaebeom have copyright for that, and if so, does he get a share of income from those?
Rep: When an artist sings, they automatically gain this right called ‘performance right.’ Artists are members of the performers association. The rights associated with the performance of their songs are something that the artist must seek from that association. For us, having to revise the song because we’re missing a member and things like that, we need to start working on those now.
New Q: The members said it too, saying they think Jaebeom as a family member and such, and you said the decision was made in this case in order to defend Jaebeom. But nobody knew of that issue with his personal life. Nobody knew of it until he called you on December 22nd. Was it possible to ignore the problem since nobody knew of it? And did you mentioned the word “personal life” because of your guilty conscience and because of the company’s policy? You used the word to make the fans understand of the situation, you said. Then why did you put such emphasis on his personal life when it is impossible to ask the fans for a solution and when you weren’t communicating with the fans at all? And you always use to word family; shouldn’t family be defending and ignoring the issue even though the fans tell you to do otherwise?
Rep: The same questions are being asked over and over I think…
Q: (interrupts) I think it’s different. He said it out of his conscience, there are so many rumours out there and why the personal life? Were there other pressures?
(Sound of fans saying let’s stop asking the same question)
New Q: According to the official statement, Jaebeom who confessed about his big mistake on December 22nd still came out to b-boying events after that. Also, before that day, he would hide his face or wear a mask or something, but now he shows his face, gives autographs to people who ask for it, talks to people and wears clothes that fans sent him from Korea. It isn’t hard to tell that footage of the b-boying tournaments will go on YouTube and be viewed by the entire world, so someone who did such great wrong that they quit the team themselves… I mean, everyone knows of his personality, right? He bowed to the fans from the stage when the September incident happened, he left the country on the 8th, and so isn’t his current attitude a bit too proud for someone who did such great wrong? What I’m curious is that if he made such great mistake, how can he be going around like that.
Rep: You probably need to ask that to himself.
Chansung: We want to ask him that as well. Why is he acting that way?
(Sound of fans talking)
New Q: (in English) Hi, can I ask this to Nichkhun and Taecyeon. The comments he made on MySpace issue, that comment wasn’t to belittle Korea but he was just venting out, right, because there were cultural differences. So, when this happened, he didn’t talk to you and Nichkhun about it, and if you knew, you should’ve known that the comment wasn’t something so bad. So why did Jay feel the need to leave?
Taecyeon: (in English) The point is that, when all the Koreans found out about MySpace, no one cared. Everyone was like, ‘just go kill yourself’; it wasn’t like he must have some kind of reason to write that. No one cared about him, not even one single reply wrote, “We still love you Jay.” No one wrote that. What was he supposed to feel? I mean, Jay probably felt the pressure more than anyone could feel.
Q: (in English) So you couldn’t persuade him to stay?
Nichkhun: (in English) We thought that if he were to stay, he might have gotten hurt, by people around him, because people hated him. We didn’t want him to go, of course, but we felt that it was the best way to save him and save everyone without getting hurt.
Taecyeon: (in English) Think about it, I mean, luckily the fact that he left made a lot of people say, ‘oh, we were witch hunting,’ but the fact that it wasn’t like that so, by leaving it was the best thing that he could’ve done for us and for himself.
Q: (in English) And when he left, did you kind of think that maybe he might come back later?
Nichkhun: (in English) Of course. From the day that he left, we knew that he was gonna come back. We had that belief.
Q: (in English): Thank you.
New Q: The statement said that Mr. JYP went to Seattle on September 23rd and met up with Jaebeom’s parents. But according to our research, the parents never met JYP and never had dinner together. So why does the statement say so? Also, what was JYPE doing for Jaebeom to prepare for his comeback? Like vocal training and lessons and such, we want to know about that.
Rep: As the statement says, on the second statement it said that JYP went to Seattle, found some tutors and did mock-lessons and such, but stories about having dinner together is just made up by reporters. I don’t know how you did your research but on September 29th, we met up with Jaebeom’s parents. We met both his mother and father, and we met up with tutors and did a mock-lesson and talked about how this tutor is good because he teaches like this, and that is nice also, and such. That happened in late September, and as you know, the lessons with those tutors continued. But what we were preparing failed because of what was in the statement… what a lot of people are saying is that Jaebeom might not be coming back because of business reasons, financial threats. I can’t say which company but there was a major corporation that sought to use Jaebeom as a model, only Jaebeom. Up until January. We were discussing that too. We were thinking about having him come back through that advertisement.
