The group New Jeans (NJZ) shared their feelings and the reason for their hiatus after the court‘s decision to accept their injunction request.

On the 26th, a video titled “New Jeans, the reason why ’NJZ‘ halted activities” was released on the YouTube channel ‘BBC News Korea’.

The BBC conducted two interviews with the members of New Jeans (NJZ) before and after the injunction result between them and their agency Adore.

In the video, Hani said, “Every decision we’ve made over the past year has been made after a lot of internal discussion,” and “To be honest, I‘m not comfortable bringing this up. It involves other teams’ stories, and we don‘t want to influence them in any way. If I don’t speak my thoughts and feelings publicly, people won‘t know. I think people only believed what was reported in the media,” he said.

Earlier, New Jeans (NJZ) sided with former Adore CEO Min Hee-jin and unilaterally declared the termination of their exclusive contract with Adore in November. They wanted to change their stage name to NJZ and prepare for a comeback, pursuing independent activities. However, on the 21st, the court accepted Adore’s injunction request for ‘Preservation of the agency’s status and prohibition of signing advertising contracts, etc.’ against the members of New Jeans, and the members announced that they would suspend their activities, threatening to file an objection and a main lawsuit.

Regarding this, Hani said, “I think in some ways people take it lightly to do something to solve this problem because we’re young. It’s not that we think less and take this problem lightly,” and added, “We’ve always said among ourselves that we wouldn’t do anything if even one of the members didn’t agree. All five had to agree before a choice could be made,” revealing that the members’ opinions were actively reflected in the dispute.

In response to some public opinion that “aren’t you taking the contractual relationship lightly” after the injunction was granted, Daniel said, “When I experienced the situation myself in 2024, I tried to keep everything quiet. I suppressed my emotions and just ignored what was happening around me. That’s because I was preparing for a comeback. But at some point, (my emotions) felt like they were going to explode. It was heartbreaking,” explaining why he went into legal dispute with Adore.

After the injunction was granted, the members appeared for another BBC interview, and Daniel said, “We really expected a different result. Everyone who saw the news was shocked.” He continued, “We just want to continue working. We want to continue doing what we love without being interrupted, without lies, and without misunderstandings,” expressing his will to continue his activities.

Hyein said, ”I think there are a lot of people who think that we are very famous and that we can do whatever we want and say whatever we want,“ and continued to point out the absurdity by saying, ”We endured it for a long time and finally spoke out about the absurdity we experienced, but when you look at it from a social perspective, the situation is not going in our favor.“

Lastly, Hani said, ”My biggest fear is that I don’t know if I can continue doing this. That‘s why we keep moving forward,“ and added, ”Even when I was a trainee two years ago, I never expected that I would experience something like this. I don’t know what the future holds. There may come a time when I can no longer promote, and I really want to avoid that.“

Jeon Hyo-jin, Donga.com Reporter jhj@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.