A New alleged victim has come out against Nam Joo Hyuk and his agency has responded to the allegations.
In June, a netizen [hereafter A] made a post claiming they were bullied by Nam Joo Hyuk for six years. The netizen claimed they were harassed by him and forced to run errands for the actor and his group. Management SOOP released a detailed statement denying the accusations and promising strict legal action against the netizens who spread it. The agency even updated fans regarding the legal action against the false bullying accusations and said they have sued the informant, reporter and publication that first published the claim. Later the same month, another alleged victim [hereafter B] has come out with their own story since then. The report was published by a different news outlet from the first one. B alleges they were a victim of Nam Joo Hyuk’s bullying alongside his friends. They decided to come forward after seeing that the actor’s agency had sued their classmate A. Despite the newly released claims, Management SOOP continues to deny. In an official statement, they told news outlets that the rumors are ‘groundless.’
On July 6, an alleged third victim came out, this time its a woman. She alleged Nam Joo Hyuk and his friends bullied and sexually harassed her during their senior year of high school. The 3rd alleged victim provided screenshots of the group chat from May 10, 2012, and claims she was forcefully invited to the group chat against her will and bullied because one of Nam Joo Hyuk’s friends disliked her.
In South Korea, this is known as “KakaoTalk prison.” Its alleged that Nam Joo Hyuk and his friends took turns sending hateful messages that included sexual harassment, comments disparaging her looks, and sexual insults. The news outlet that published the post claims that while Nam Joo Hyuk did not create the group chat, the text messages show he insulted her and participated in the conversations. She also claims the perpetrators’ punishment was mandated community service within the school back then and they only apologized because they were forced to. She also claims that they recently contacted her and attempted to apologize to her, 10 years later.
Management SOOP then released a statement, again, denying the accusations. In their statement, they confirmed that while the text messages provided by the 3rd accuser were real, they allege these messages are taken out-of-context of a bigger situation. They also confirm that the incident wrapped up with an apology as she claimed, however, they denied that Nam Joo Hyuk attempted to apologize to her recently.
Elaborating on the text messages, they said it was ‘very complicated and an extremely personal matter for the individuals in the chat,’ thus, they will not be revealing the full story via the media.
The agency repeated that the claims are not true but people are believing them as media outlets begin to circulate them as facts, adding that no matter how much they counter-claim or how the accusers never provide evidence, its been reported as truth. They said that Nam Joo Hyuk has been suffering greatly as a result of this and whats been done cannot be undone to him even if his innocence can be proven later on.
For these reasons, SOOP says they’re determined and will sue the 1st and 2nd accusers in order to protect the actor’s reputation as well as take legal action against any media outlets or YouTube channels that report this as facts.
What do you think of this?
