The co-CEO of SM Entertainment, Lee Sung-soo, reportedly exposed Lee Soo-man, the business’s founder, in a YouTube video by making claims regarding the company’s rookie group aespa.
The founder’s nephew-in-law and co-CEO, Lee Sung Soo, published a video titled “SM Entertainment CEO Lee Sung Soo’s Statement Presentation Part 1” on February 16. He discussed the company’s ongoing shareholder dispute, purported mismanagement, greed, and other topics in the 28-minute video.
Lee Sung-soo specifically said that the founder Lee Soo-man had the notion to shift the musical direction by penning songs about environmental sustainability and climate change. He asserted that he was told to perform songs about “growing trees” for the company’s newest group, aespa, who made their mark on the market with their AI conceptual Kwangya universe.
The co-CEO claims that the founder provided the teams with songs that included phrases like “greenism” and “just sustainability.” He also said that the songs’ artificiality caused the members of aespa to cry.
The conflict between SM Entertainment and its founder has evolved into the K-pop industry’s version of Game of Thrones. According to sources, the business first joined forces with Kakao to become a significant investor. The co-CEOs were allegedly sued when Lee Soo-man teamed up with HYBE to sell his shares, creating HYBE SM Entertainment’s largest shareholder.
One of the company’s co-CEOs, Lee Sung-soo, made a number of accusations against the founder of SM Entertainment in a video that was published as part of this highly publicised and legal conflict. According to one of the charges, he gave the order to shift the musical direction of aespa. The girls were instructed to perform a song on climate change and sustainability, diverting their attention from the stirring tunes chosen for their overarching topic.
Fans reacted to this “weird” news with memes and some laughs but they are also very clearly upset with SME. aespa will soon be holding their first concert without having released a full album yet, even after almost three years of debut.
