Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Kyla of PRISTIN will take a hiatus from the group in America in order to deal with undisclosed medical issues, according to an announcement by Pledis Entertainment.
“Hello. This is Pledis Entertainment. We regret to inform this news to fans who love PRISTIN. After receiving a medical examination while resting at home in the United States during Chuseok, Kyla was recommended by doctors to take a break. Kyla expressed that she wanted to participate in PRISTIN’s activities, and the company also wanted this, but her treatment is more important as her health comes as our #1 priority. She will continue to receive treatment in the United States until her health improves. We apologize to fans of PRISTIN and Kyla for this sudden news, but Kyla’s health comes first and it is more important in the long run for her to recover. She will return to PRISTIN as soon as she recovers. We would like to offer our utmost sincere apologies to fans and ask for your understanding. Please give Kyla your support for a quick recovery and a healthy return.”
This is noteworthy not just for the hiatus itself, but because it comes after Kyla has gotten ripped by netizens for supposedly not being thin enough.
But it’s not just the netizens, as you could sort of see this coming with the way the issue kept coming up over and over again in the Korean news. Furthermore, Kyla’s brother made is abundantly clear on Twitter that she saw all the stuff from international news sites as well, which is why I tried to keep the coverage to a minimum here. Of course, Asian Junkie is irrelevant in comparison (and in general) and this continued to get back to her over and over again since bigger sites didn’t care about her and her family reading it all.
So in the end, netizens and media created their own positive feedback loop about this and it certainly seems like a 15-year-old girl got bullied out of her dream cause she wasn’t thin enough. Hopefully whatever is going on resolves itself, but cynically speaking? These kind of hiatuses in K-pop have a tendency to either last a long time or end up permanent. Hoping for better this time.
