Third S. Korean popstar quits band over a sex scandal
Seoul: A third high-profile South Korean popstar on Thursday quit his band after admitting to viewing a secretly filmed sex video.
In an Instagram post, Yong Jun-hyung, 29, announced that he would leave the boy band Highlight after he recanted his previous denials of receiving such videos, the Guardian reported.
Yong said he had received a clip that another entertainer had recorded without the woman’s consent and then participated in “inappropriate conversations” about it.
“All these behaviours were extremely unethical, and I was stupid,” he said in the post to his 1.7 million Instagram followers.
Highlight’s entertainment label, Around US Entertainment, said in a statement that Yong was “now in a deep state of reflection for his past inappropriate actions, as well as for the disappointment that he undoubtedly caused many due to his immorality”.
The admission emerged on the same day that the police were set to question two other K-pop stars over their roles in the scandal.
They include singer-songwriter and television personality Jung Joon-young, 30, who is at the centre of the filming allegations. Jung has already admitted to secretly filming women having sex with him and then sharing the video in a chat group that included other entertainers.
Another industry figure who received the videos was Bigbang member Seungri, 29, who quit on Monday amid separate allegations that he procured prostitutes for business partners in return for investments.
Within broader South Korean society, the use of hidden cameras to record sexually explicit material, known as “molka”, is a fast-growing problem.
Police figures indicate the number of molka arrests rose from 1,110 in 2010 to more than 6,600 in 2014.
