While HYBE has achieved significant successes with its girl groups, there are also a fair share of turbulent experiences that raise eyebrows, as detailed below:
GLAM
GLAM was the 1st girl group of HYBE, having debuted under Big Hit Entertainment before it became HYBE and was co-managed by Source Music. The original lineup of GLAM consisted of 5 members, and the group made their official debut back in 2012.
By 2014, however, actor Lee Byung-hun reported to the police that he was being blackmailed by two women, one of whom was GLAM member Dahee. After the investigation, the female idol received a 2-year suspended sentence. Big Hit Entertainment and Source Music also officially disbanded the group, announcing the end of GLAM’s contract.
After the scandal that shook the entertainment industry involving GLAM, along with the outstanding success of BTS, Big Hit completely focused on male idol groups. Furthermore, the company also transferred its female trainees, including SinB and Eunha of GFriend, to Source Music
After the GLAM scandal, Big Hit did not debut any more girl groups. Later on, HYBE acquired some subsidiary companies and debuted some girl groups, but until now, Big Hit Music (now a subsidiary of HYBE) has not debuted any female artist.
LE SSERAFIM
LE SSERAFIM debuted in 2022 under the HYBE subsidiary Source Music. However, less than a month after their debut, member Kim Garam became the center of controversy for being involved in allegations of school violence.
Many posts on online communities accused the female idol of being a bully during her school days, with allegations including bullying classmates, underage drinking, smoking, and so on.
In response, Source Music asserted that Kim Garam was a victim, not a perpetrator, and even tried to shield her friend against school bullying. At the same time, the female idol temporarily halted activities amid heavy public criticisms.
The public did not believe Source Music’s claims, and Garam eventually left LE SSERAFIM.
It was until after her departure from LE SSERAFIM that Kim Garam finally spoke out about her own school violence scandal.
Accordingly, the school violence accusations against Garam were mostly deemed more as a “conflict” between students rather than “bullying”. Still, Garam and LE SSERAFIM took a heavy blow to their image.
LE SSERAFIM has seen significant successes since then, only to recently fall under public scrutiny again due to their stage at the 2024 Coachella. In particular, due to their lacking live-singing skills, LE SSERAFIM became the target of criticisms, with various comments calling them “tone-deaf”, “untalented”, “arrogant”, and so on.
Though LE SSERAFIM has somewhat “redeemed” themselves in the 2nd week of Coachella, the girl group still had a long way to go before being able to get rid of their “untalented” image.
NewJeans and ILLIT
Most recently, HYBE girl groups NewJeans and ILLIT became the latest topic of controversy, after Min Hee-jin, the CEO of NewJeans’ agency ADOR accused ILLIT of copying NewJeans.
At the same time, Min Hee-jin was also accused of stealing confidential information, trade secrets, and even leaking personal information of HYBE artists in order to stage public criticism towards HYBE – all in order to secure ADOR’s independence from HYBE.
These actions have prompted heavy criticisms towards both NewJeans and ILLIT, especially when Min Hee-jin even mentioned other artists such as FIFTY FIFTY, RIIZE, TWS, and even BTS in her claims.
As a result, accusations targeting NewJeans and ILLIT also started to surface, with NewJeans being accused of copying a Japanese girl group and ILLIT’s poor encore performance being brought up again.
It seems that every girl group that has debuted under HYBE has led to controversies and even detrimental consequences towards the label. This has raised questions of whether HYBE is truly “cursed” when it comes to girl groups.
