Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin has been under fire recently for her alleged sexualization of minors and for doing so in the releases of her group NewJeans, with things deepening with the release of “Cookie”. She recently did an interview with JoongAng Ilbo, addressing the allegations and saying she’s going to take legal action.
Min Hee Jin explained, “Some time ago, my personal Instagram posts were ‘chewed out’ by speculations. I heard from acquaintances and companies that it was an issue that was not worth responding to because it was absurd. But the more I thought about it, there is no reason for me to just let it go.” She continued to explain, “According to the company and various opinions, it was seen that the level of dissemination, profanity, and spread of false information is serious and should not be overlooked so we started civil and criminal lawsuits. In the legal review, a significant amount of illegal matters were discovered.” Min Hee Jin added, “With this as an opportunity, we created a new legal team dedicated to ADOR to prevent future problems and to protect the rights and interests of the members.”
Given that people have taken it as far as accusing her of being a pedophile, I suppose it’s somewhat expected on that front.
Then in response to specific allegations brought up, she tried to explain some of that as well.
Previously, many suspicions and accusations arose that Min Hee Jin was glamorizing pedophilia. The reason was that Min Hee Jin posted pictures of naked girls in the interior of her studio, according to Min Hee Jin’s posts on her personal Instagram in the past. In response, Min Hee Jin dismissed the accusations saying that “the photos were just a gift from someone I know.” Additionally, she pointed out that those photos were from a few years ago. In addition, there was more controversy due to a NewJeans member wearing a T-shirt that said “PIMP is Yours” in a TikTok video. Thereafter, many people also discussed whether the song “Cookie” also had inappropriate meaning behind the lyrics that is unfitting for underaged girls to sing. However, [the T-shirt brand] argued, “The word started as a slang word in the 70s and 80s and is still used in the United States, in the same way, to mean ‘to decorate gorgeously’ and has a great cultural value.” [Min Hee Jin] also explained that “Cookie” is a song for fans and explained, “We made this album with the heart of carefully baking cookies.”
Note: It came to my attention that a quote from an unnamed T-shirt brand was incorrectly attributed to Min Hee Jin in the translation, so I fixed that part.
The whole thing is pretty dismissive overall considering the severity of the allegations. That said, I don’t care so much what art or films Min Hee Jin herself enjoys, and am more concerned with how that might be related to her group NewJeans and their concepts, and it’s worrying that she doesn’t seem to care much about those questions either.
Honestly, the explanations for the NewJeans stuff is just weird. I figured the shirt with “pimp” on it was just some stylist mistake as it doesn’t even really make sense, but the brand’s bizarre line of defense and them seemingly not caring that it was used on minors at least makes me think twice about its use. Then Min Hee Jin herself takes up the mantle for “Cookie” as just being about making cookies, which is embarrassing because the two writers of the lyrics are Gigi and Ylva Dimberg, both of whom are fluent in English so there’s no doubt they knew what the lyrics were insinuating. On some level it feels like Min Hee Jin is just taking everybody for fools, but I guess it’s hard to blame her for believing it could work given the amount of people insisting the song is completely innocent.
