Yang Ye Won‘s allegations against a photo studio that supposedly they leaked her nudes and resulted in her being sexually assaulted suddenly became relevant to K-pop when Suzy endorsed a government petition seeking an investigation. That appeared to be immediately productive when police made an arrest of a man who allegedly sold her photos, and the number of alleged victims rose to four.
Now an exclusive report from Money Today could change the narrative quite a bit, as they published texts from Yang Ye Won to the photo studio’s owner from July 7, 2015 to September 30, 2015, with Yang Ye Won initiating contact. Yang Ye Won claimed that the sexual assault started from the first photo session and she was forced to do four more under similar circumstances under threat of legal action. However, the texts show there were 13 sessions and that it was Yang Ye Won who was asking to be booked, seemingly needing money.
Based on the KakaoTalk exchange, there was a total of 13 filming sessions with the first taking place on July 8, 2015, and the thirteenth session on September 18, 2015. Throughout the entire conversation, it’s possible to see Yang Ye Won continuously asking the studio to book session after session. August 27 shows her asking, “How about Saturday night? I need to submit my classes fee by Sunday so I need to do it one more time before then TT. If there’s a conflict in schedule, can we do it next week with me receiving the payment in advance…I wanted to ask TT. If that doesn’t work, can you schedule me in difficultly TT. Obviously, I can’t do much otherwise TT.” Since the new revelation, the individual spoke on the phone with Money Today and said, “The schedules were set most of the time because she contacted me as she needed money. I gave her 100,000-150,000 KRW ($93 – $140) hourly. We filmed up to 13 times. I originally didn’t plan or think to film so many times.” He continued, “The filming took place with her agreement and I even asked her if she could follow through with the concept ahead of time during the interview.”
Money Today tried to get her side of the story regarding these exchanges, but were not successful.
To get both sides of the story, Money Today tried to contact Yang Ye Won but came up short.
Admittedly, while doing an analysis of this being made up versus believable at the time it emerged, I figured she was telling the truth. It’s not that the possibility she was embarrassed about nude photos leaking didn’t cross my mind, it’s that with the corroborating stories and the amount of attention that was bound to come down, it just didn’t seem like it would make sense to lie. This new information, while not entirely conclusive either, throws a wrench into that thought process. It certainly paints a picture of a woman who took nude photos for money, had them leaked without her consent, and then fabricated a story to hide the embarrassment of doing said nude photos.
Make no mistake, she still appears to be a victim of nude photos leaking regardless, but the more serious allegations are understandably under fire now. Stuff like this is why opinions based on available information are natural, but also why I frequently say that waiting for things to shake out before taking action is prudent. The same obviously applies to the emergence of this news as well, as surely there’s more to come now.