Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Kim Haeun, also known as former Cignature member Ye Ah, is doing a series on a secondary Instagram account talking about her idol journey and how she debuted three times. In the final part of it, she talks about her hardships in making C9 Entertainment‘s weight standard, and that it led to her being forced to leave the group.
250513 Haeun IG post last episode, using online audio translation #cignature pic.twitter.com/TtfZr4oljk
— elolery ⛱️ (@lolerinu) May 13, 2025
Back in April of 2021, both Ye Ah and Sunn left the group and nullified their contracts, which confused a lot of Cignature fans as it seemed to come out of the blue. Ye Ah was also the group’s main vocal at the time, and earlier in the story she says the company CEO contacted her to redebut because they needed a main vocal, which makes this all the more bizarre. She also talked about her struggles with dieting and unhealthy eating habits, and the anxiety the weight scrutiny caused.
That’s plenty fucked up on its own and an indictment of the industry, but I also went back in the story a bit, and somehow it gets far worse than that.
Ye Ah says in the second part of her story that while she was a part of kids group Littles, investors showed up and got them and their parents to agree to send them to another agency that could supposedly provide better for their debut. She explains that they were strict, and they were hit in the stomach to teach “proper breathing” and hit on the head for being tired. Despite being 15 (FIFTEEN), she was also taken to karaoke to meet people who “could help”, and while she didn’t like it she thought it was part of fulfilling her dream. Eventually they found out that agency’s CEO didn’t have the finances to debut them, and she considered herself lucky that she was able to cancel the contracts.
Good god, what a nightmare. The company and CEO from that story aren’t named, and there’s no info on where she was between Littles and Good Day, but if you know, let me know so I can update this.
