[Trigger Warning/Content Warning: Bullying, Self-Harm, and Suicide]
Following news that ANS member Haena was being bullied by her own group members, seven out of the eight members have taken legal action to terminate their contracts with their agency, ANS Entertainment.
Haena had previously shared three Instagram posts exposing her members and what she had to endure, including attempting to take her own life due to the bullying.
On August 20, Thursday, all the posts on ANS' official fan cafe have been deleted. The seven members who had terminated their contracts released a statement that reads:
"Hello. This is ANS' Lina, Royeon, Dalyn, Raon, Bian, and Dam I from ANS. We are the seven members excluding Haena.
First of all, we want to apologize to the fans who have given us so much support but were worried about the recent media reports. We want to share the current situation with our fans because there may be some that are worried and do not understand the situation we are in.
All seven members excluding Haena have requested to terminate our contract with the agency through a legal representative. We believe the issue between us and the agency is related to the issue with Haena. We also believe that it is our responsibility to share with everyone each of our personal stances and situations. Although it is shameful, we want to share with you all what is currently happening within the agency.
Our agency, ANS Entertainment, dismissed almost all of their staff at once in March and once again in April. They have dismissed the staff members who have taken care of us, including our manager. Therefore, we did not have any managers.
On June 14, the agency closed the office, so we were left without a company building. We had also moved our dormitory from Shinsadong to Gimpo. Since then, we did not have a practice studio.
Since we do not have a manager, we had to contact and plan our activities ourselves. We also managed the fan cafe ourselves and just acted like a staff member was the one managing it. We were given one vehicle to use for travel, so some of our members had to ride taxis.
Amidst all of this, we held a fan meeting on June 20. As most of our fans know, there were many minor and major mistakes. It would have turned out to be ac complete mess if it weren't for the staff, who were already dismissed, that came to help.
It is shameful to say, but none of our members have even received vocal lessons. Each of our members also only received 10,000 KRW per day for our meals, and this was not given to us during the weekends.
In actuality, we did not receive any support from our management. We had requested to at least take vocal lessons, but the agency rejected our request, saying they did not have the money to support it.
We understand that these are difficult times due to the corona outbreak, but our company has neglected us too much. We decided we could not just sit idly when we think about the fans who are expecting a lot from us.
Because of this, we hired a legal representative and sent a statement to the agency, requesting them to follow through with the contract we made. The contract requests to hire a manager for the group, have a company space and provide singing and dancing lessons. We requested the agency to fulfill these requests within 14 days or we will pursue legal actions for the breach of contract. However, the agency did not full the proper measures for our request. Instead, they called one of our members' mothers to threaten us, saying 'The agency did nothing wrong. We will be taking the members with good tempers and leave the rest to rot like trash. We will be making a blacklist so they won't be able to do anything in this industry. We will make them so depressed that the only thing they will be able to do is to stay at home.'
In response to this, we have chosen not to endure this any longer. We have notified the agency that we will be terminating our contracts.
During this time, the issue of Haena arose.
During the time we sent our statements to the agency, they started discussing the issue with Haena. Soon after, the agency informed us that Haena had been admitted to the hospital and we should go check on her. Right before we sent the letter informing the agency of our contract termination, the content seen in the articles were posted to Haena's Instagram account.
Truthfully, the relationship between us and Haena was not bad. In our eyes, we did not have any problems with her.
Haena joined ANS in December 2019. She was the maknae of the group and was attending high school at the time. This year, our group was not able to promote as much due to the situation with the company. Because of this, we did not spend much time with her.
The only conflict we had with Haena was when we had convinced her to return to her studies when she decided not to attend anymore after being tested for coronavirus.
There was a person who had tested positive for the virus at the internet cafe Haena had gone to. Haena received testing on May 29th and fortunately, she tested negative. The quarantine authorities informed her that she needed to quarantine for an additional three days.
During that time, we were taking care of Haena's school notices. We received a call for Haena's homeroom teacher on June 8th and informed us that Haena had not returned to school even after the additional three days of quarantine and did not contact the school to tell them the reason for her absence.
The teacher told us that Haena had missed many school days under the premise that she was promoting with ANS and the agency. She even told the school on the day of her graduation photos that she had a work schedule with the agency and did not show up. Looking back at it, we did not have any activities on the day of her graduation photos.
This is when we called Haena to come to a cafe, where we informed her of the conversation we had with her homeroom teacher. We asked her what was going on and she was unable to give a clear answer, only saying it was a personal issue. One of our members went on to say that lying is not good and that we as a group should discuss if she had any issues. We encouraged her to do better in the future. We did not curse at her, we didn't even raise our voice at all.
Honestly, these kinds of management should have been done by the agency, but we instead managed Haena's school attendance because the agency didn't.
The following day, Haena contacted one of our members and confessed that she had been suffering from mental issues. She stated that she wanted to talk with her parents before making any decisions. We told her that we respect her decision and to talk to us after speaking with the agency. Haena stopped replying to us after.
On June 12, she suddenly contacted two of our members, saying 'I am in a difficult state mentally so I could not reply. I'm sorry. I will contact you once I get better.' This was her last message to us.
On our fan meeting on June 20, Haena did not attend. Because of that, we went through difficult trying to change the choreography to fill Haena's spots.
After, the agency notified us that Haena had been admitted to the hospital because of us. They told us to go visit Haena at the hospital, but we were hesitant because we thought the agency might plan something against us. We were scared and we were not able to contact Haena. Fortunately, Haena's condition was alright and we were told she was set home. We were relieved to hear she was alright.
In actuality, Haena was having a hard time because of the unclear future brought about by the situation with the agency. She revealed she was going through financial difficulties because we were not receiving any monetary support from the agency.
We do not have any ill-feelings for Haena, and we never did. We want to resolve any misunderstanding we have between Haena by openly communicating with her about it.
However, the issue with Haena occurred at the time when the issues revolving our contracts arose. When we look back at the time when the agency spoke badly of us and threatened us, we suspected the agency had used Haena to conceal the issue concerning the contract.
Fans! We have received so much love and support from you all. We are so sorry that we have worried you and caused concern about this situation. We have terminated our contracts with the agency recently. No one knows what will happen to us in the future and are in a state of uncertainty.
Even if we continue to pursue our dreams in the entertainment industry, we are not sure we can do so as a team. We knew that this would happen but we were left with no choice but to terminate our contract with the agency. We hope that our fans can understand and we promise we will try to return with a better version of ourselves.
Thank you so much.
August 20, 2020.
Sincerely,
Lina, Royeon, Dalyn, Raon, Bian, and Dam I from ANS."
