Former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin, long known for presenting herself as NewJeans’ mom, is now facing intensifying scrutiny over whether she truly acted in the members’ best interests. Although she has repeatedly emphasized the agency of the members, new developments suggest she may have exercised substantial influence over their decisions during critical moments.
At last month’s third hearing at the Seoul Central District Court, Min denied ever instructing member Hani to attend the parliamentary audit, asserting that the members make their own choices and adding that they are not the type to blindly follow instructions.
She further claimed it was insulting to suggest she had manipulated the situation. However, these statements conflict with several documented details.
Central to the controversy is the sequence and context of events. Dispatch reported that on October 8 of last year, Hani spent more than four hours in Min’s studio, where she met with Min and a legal representative from Sejong.
Hani was seen holding a yellow envelope associated with a witness summons, and Min appeared to be consoling her. The following day, Hani wrote on a fan platform that she had made her decision and would attend the parliamentary audit alone, stressing that it was her choice.
Considering the proximity between the extended meeting and the public announcement, it is difficult to view the gathering as merely a casual visit. The timing of a four-hour discussion involving the member, the CEO, and legal counsel one week before the audit carries inherent significance.
Yet when pressed in court, Min dismissed the implication, responding with the question of how anyone could know whether they were meeting or simply spending time together.
The situation has also revived scrutiny of the so-called ignore it controversy. Hani had claimed during a YouTube livestream last September that an IVE manager told her to ignore it, but in October the court ruled that there was not enough evidence to confirm the remark had ever been made.
Instead, based on KakaoTalk exchanges between Hani and Min Hee Jin, the court found that Min was the first to introduce the phrase ignore it.
When Hani said she could not recall the exact wording but was trying to express the overall feeling, Min immediately reframed the incident by asking whether this was the ignore it thing and pressing Hani to specify which member had supposedly slighted her, effectively shaping the situation as one of Hani being wronged by an IVE manager.
CCTV footage further contradicted the claim, showing that IVE members had bowed to Hani first. With no objective evidence supporting Hani’s account, the ruling underscored Min’s substantial influence in steering the narrative toward a scenario in which Hani had been disrespected.
Taken together, these circumstances stand in stark contrast to Min’s repeated insistence that NewJeans members act entirely on their own agency, instead reinforcing suspicions that she has played a central role in interpreting, amplifying, and even constructing narratives that extend into political and legal arenas.
Last September, after Min Hee Jin was dismissed, NewJeans held an emergency live broadcast where they outlined the unfair treatment they believed they had received from HYBE and called for a return to the original ADOR structure with Min overseeing management and producing, while maintaining that their actions were not directed by Min.
However, the overall timeline raises doubts about how independent the broadcast truly was. Even if the members possess strong individual agency, it remains difficult to rule out the possibility that someone with Min’s authority as both CEO and producer influenced their judgment during critical moments.
At the third hearing, HYBE confronted Min by asking whether someone who regards herself as NewJeans’ mom should have protected the members by saying they did not know anything and simply followed instructions.
The conflict deepened when HYBE terminated the shareholders agreement last July, alleging that Min attempted to privatize NewJeans and ADOR in a way that harmed the company and its subsidiaries.
Min, dismissed as CEO in August, informed HYBE of her intention to exercise her put option when she stepped down as an internal director in November.
HYBE argues the put option is invalid because the agreement had already been terminated, while Min’s side insists there were no contractual violations and that HYBE’s termination notice is itself invalid, meaning the put option was exercised while the agreement was still active.
The put option is a key clause in the agreement; under its terms, Min would be entitled to receive from HYBE an amount calculated by multiplying ADOR’s average operating profit over the previous two years by thirteen and applying seventy-five percent of her shareholding ratio, a figure estimated at 26 billion KRW (19.5 million USD).
