Seoul's Mayor Park Won Sun is looking into the recent controversy surrounding XIA Junsu's absence from the Seoul Music Awards.
Following the 25th Annual Seoul Music Awards, Park Won Sun took to Twitter to announce that he was "looking into the problem" surrounding JYJ member Kim "XIA" Junsu not receiving an invitation to the award ceremony. Junsu received the Popularity Prize at this year's Seoul Music Awards, but reported never being offered an invitation to the award ceremony.
Because the Seoul Music Awards are sponsored by the Seoul city government, reports the K-Pop Herald, Park Won Sun was contacted by fans because of Junsu's exclusion.
Park Won Sun's tweet was in response to a Korean twitter user demanding an explanation for Junsu's absence, "even when he was voted the most popular artist of the year in a 47-day 'paid voting' [event.]"
Korean fans spent weeks voting in the Seoul Music Awards' popularity poll, using paid texts to vote Xia Junsu to the top.
Despite taking the top place, Junsu did not attend Thursday night's award ceremony, allegedly due to SM Entertainment's ongoing malicious intent towards his group JYJ, whose members left SM's TVXQ in 2009 amidst a contract nullification lawsuit.
Since leaving TVXQ, Kim Jaejoong, Park Yoochun and Junsu have been blocked from appearing on Korean music broadcasts. It is speculated that SM Entertainment threatened broadcasters to withhold popular SM artists if JYJ members appeared on their shows.
Despite the ban, the three members have pursued successful careers as musicians and actors.
In 2015, the South Korean National Assembly passed the so-called "JYJ Law" that would fine broadcasters for banning celebrities without fair reasoning, as a response to JYJ's absence from broadcast music shows since 2009.
Along with saying that he'd look into the matter, Mayor Park tweeted that he recognized Junsu from the musical "December."
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Tamar Herman is a multi-media journalist and the co-founder of KultScene. She is a freelance writer and copy editor, and has written for MTV Iggy, Noisey, and Paste Magazine.
