Ex-(G)I-DLE Member Soojin To Return As Soloist Following 'School Violence' Accusations

Former (G)I-DLE member Seo Soo-jin might be making a comeback in the K-Pop industry after two years since she departed from the group over school bullying allegations.

Per local media outlet SPOTV News, the 25-year-old South Korean singer-dancer is allegedly preparing to release new music as a solo artist this fall season. Rumors of her comeback instantly sparked after she opened her personal Instagram account last July, and she has since started communicating with her supporters.

International Business Times couldn't independently verify this report. But Soo-jin has yet to make an official announcement about her solo activities on social media. Instead, she continued to post photos of her recent endeavors, giving her 2.8 million followers a glimpse of her non-K-Pop idol life. It is also unclear if she has signed with a new entertainment company in South Korea.

In 2021, Soo-jin made the headlines after an unnamed accuser claimed that she bullied the latter's older sister. Initially, the former K-Pop star denied the allegations, but it was further fueled after South Korean actress Seo Shin Ae also claimed to be a victim of bullying.

The singer-dancer then took to her former agency Cube Entertainment's official fan site, U CUBE, to explain her side of the story.

There, she shared her experiences of "rebelling" at a young age and admitted that a lot of negative rumors followed her around. But despite those, she claimed to have never bullied the accusers. She even considered one of them her friend and remembered her as a "good person."

Soo-jin did admit that she and the said friend fought over a broken promise, prompting their friendship to drift apart. But she never got "physically violent with the girl" and did not urge other classmates to bully. She also claimed she never spoke with Shin Ae when they attended the same school.

"I'm sorry. I want to apologize to everyone who [was] hurt by my embarrassing actions. I'm sorry for having caused this controversy involving my personal life. And I apologize to everyone, whom I may have hurt with my thoughtless actions in the past," she concluded her message.

With the strong allegations against her, Soo-jin eventually withdrew as a member of (G)I-DLE and left her former agency in August 2021, following a five-month hiatus from group activities. (G)I-DLE has since been promoting as a five-member group composed of Jeon So-yeon, YUQI, Minnie, Cho Mi-yeon, and Yeh Shu Hua.

Soo-jin consequently filed a criminal complaint against her accusers, but the lawsuit never made it to court as legal authorities claimed that the accuser was not guilty because the claims may have been true from the perspective of the accuser, who also had no intention of making false statements.

Her legal representative then released a statement, in the hope of clearing Soo-jin's name from the bullying allegations, saying, "In her first year of middle school, Seo Soojin was acquitted by the School Violence Countermeasures Autonomous Committee and was recognized as a victim of coercion from her seniors."