Former X1 member Hangyul revealed how he feels about the vote-rigging case of "Produce" series and X1's disbandment.
BAE173's Hangyul, who is a previous member of project boy group X1, recently sat down for an interview with KPOP IDOL OLYMPIC where he discussed his journey as an idol. During the talk, he brought up the "Produce 101" series vote manipulation case, as well as the X1's disbandment.
Hangul is known to be one of the contestants on Mnet's "Produce X 101" and finished in seventh place in the finale of the reality survival show, helping him debut as one of the members of X1. The boy band debuted in August 2019 with the album titled "Emergency: Quantum Leap" featuring the title song "Flash." However, a few months later, fans speculated that there had been manipulation of the text votes after comparing the announced vote totals of the winning trainees.
At first, Mnet denied the speculations but eventually admitted to the crime. And it was later revealed that not only were the votes for Mnet's "Produce X 101" rigged, but each season of the program had some trainees unfairly eliminated by Ahn Joon Young, the producing director of the show.
During the talk with KPOP IDOL OLYMPIC, BAE173's Hangyul was asked how he felt about the vote-manipulation scandal and X1's disbandment. He shared that it was one of the most disheartening experiences of his life. "I worked really hard to release an album and received lots of support from the fans. I only released one album, and it was so disappointing that I was over after one album," he confessed.
Hangyul went on to say that X1 members wanted to do more as a group, but they failed as their respective labels couldn't reach an agreement, leading to the disbandment of the band. The idol added, "I really feel that was unfortunate. It's a team I'd like to reform one day."
When asked if he feels anger toward the people behind the vote-rigging, the BAE173 member responded, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't upset." "'Ah, I can just try again,' that's the mindset I keep. But even after saying that, I was still hurting," Hangyul continued.
While keeping that mindset, the artist also revealed that he thought about whether he should quit as an idol or not. The main reason he considered this was because of the hardships he would go through in trying to debut as an idol, considering that he has debuted or tried to debut multiple times before.
He first debuted in 2017 as part of the group called IM, which only released one song. In that same year, he participated in the survival reality show "The Unit" but he failed to be included in the final lineup of the project group UNB. He then competed in "Produce X 101" last year.
Despite the difficulties, BAE173's Hangyul revealed that the reason why he decided to continue to pursue his dreams is because of the fans. This resulted in the singer successfully debuting as a BAE173 member last November.
Watch the full interview of Hangyul below!
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Written by Mhaliya Scott
