WITH their glamorous lifestyles, high-fashion clothes and millions of followers, K-pop bands have become a global phenomenon over the past two decades.
But the bright, shiny pop bands are often a facade for a sinister industry plagued with sex scandals, eating disorders and suicide, where kids as young as 10 are said to be sent to harsh boot camps where weight and diet are strictly monitored.
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But the trauma doesn't stop once they become popstars.
Despite making millions, K-Pop stars are made to sign crippling contracts that could leave them penniless and several executives have been accused of sexual exploitation.
One manager even shared video footage of himself having sex with an artist after she tried to break off her contract.
And while they have millions of adoring fans, they are also easy targets for cruel online trolls.
K-Pop star Sulli, who was found dead on Monday, aged just 25, was forced to retire four years ago after suffering horrific online abuse.
The singer, said to have been suffering with depression, had opened up about feelings of anxiety and "social phobia" last year.
She said in an interview: "Ive had panic disorder ever since I was young.
"There were times when close people Some of my closest friends have left me. People hurt me, so everything fell apart.
"I didnt feel like I had anyone on my side or anyone who could understand me. So thats why I completely fell apart."
Police are investigating the cause of death and are working on the assumption she took her own life,reports the BBC.
She was good friends with K-pop starJonghyun, who took his own life aged 27 two years ago.
But her death isn't the only dark cloud looming over the industry.
K-pop a fusion of Western and Korean music - first became popular in the 1990s in South Korea but since 2008, social media has fuelled a global explosion with acts like BTS, BlackPink and EXO finding millions of fans in the Western world.
With the K-pop industry now worth around 3.7billion the number of kids trying to become the next pop superstar - and the people exploiting them - has risen dramatically.
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K-pop colleges have opened all over South Korea, aiming to get ambitious kids the look, style and dance moves that will get them through the tough auditions for the three top labels - SM, JYP, or YG.
But if they succeed, life gets even tougher.
Each has their own boot camp where children as young as 10 are put through gruelling training for dancing, singing, modelling - and made to work out 'to achieve the perfect look'.
Their diet is said to be strictly monitored and they are weighed morning and night, with their weight reported to a master trainer.
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The alleged pressure to be stick thin means some trainees end up on extreme diets where they starve themselves, even after they make it.
Ladies' Code singer Sojung admitted on a Korean TV show that she has dieted so much her hormone level dropped to to "those of a menopausal woman."
OneKet from Global Icon allegedly lost a 1st 6lbs in a month by consuming just one bottle of soya milk per day.
While solo artist T.O.P reportedly lost over four stone in a few weeks by taking in nothing but water and a few jelly beans.
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The unhealthy diets can also spread to bands' legions of fans, with some stars advocating food fads like the banana diet or watermelon diet.
One girl band, Nine Muses, revealed they used the 'Nine paper cup diet' - where you eat a daily ration of nine cups of any food except refined sugar.
Unsurprisingly, some fans then tried to follow it.
But enforced diets are not the only way that some music bigwigs ensure their boot camp wannabes get the right look.
In a country where plastic surgery is common, young hopefuls are often offered loans for cosmetic procedures with the label paying half.
Kim Min-Seok, a former master trainer with YG, claimed to Vice: "The first, most important thing is their appearance. If a girl has a bad face and a good body, the problem can be fixed with plastic surgery."
The teens-in-training can wait between six months to ten years before getting their chance of stardom and those that succeed often find they have signed so-called "slave contracts" that will see them earn 'next to nothing' for up to 15 years.
If they attempt to break the contract there can be severe financial penalties or worse.
In one shocking case, singer Baek Ji-young's manager Kim Shi-won filmed them having sex without her knowledge, prosecutors said.
He then allegedly threatened to release the footage after she tried to get out of his contract. She called his bluff and he did just that.
When Baek tried to sue, Kim fled to the States where he was later arrested for having sex with a minor, which he was also alleged to have filmed.
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He is reported to have served time in an LA jail over the charge.
Sexual exploitation has also been widespread in the whole Korean wave which encompasses film and TV as well as K-pop.
Seoul Beats recently reported that the CEO of one unnamed K-pop agency was given 20 months in prison for being involved in prostitution.
When actress Jang Ja-yeon killed herself in 2009, at the age of 29, she left a seven-page suicide note claiming that modern-day sex slavery was rife across the Korean entertainment industry.
In February, YG star Seungri was reported to have offered women to clients at his Seoul nightclub, Burning Sun, and in March he was arrested for sex bribery.
On March 12, star Jung Joon-young confessed to filming himself having sex with women and sharing the videos in a chat room, without their knowledge or consent.
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A Soeul TV station, SBS, then discovered the chat room was used by many more entertainers who watched the videos, leading to the axing of members from three different bands.
There were also vile threads discussing the abuse and rape of women in graphic terms.
The scandal along with widespread reports of spy-cams being used in hotel rooms and womens toilets - led to protests in the South Korean capital against a toxic culture that allegedly treats women as sexual objects.
As well as sexual exploitation, the pressure to look "perfect" and strive for success has apparently led to some high-profile suicides.
In 2017, pop star Kim Jong-hyun, better known as Jonghyun, took his own life, leaving a note which read:I am broken from inside.
Charles Park, known by the stage name Seo Ji-won, was one of the first K-pop celebrities to take his own life in 1996, shortly after his debut album proved an overnight hit. He was 19.
Adding to the pressures heaped on the stars are the attentions of the superfans known as the Sasaeng.
The acts are followed wherever they go by crowds of loyal fans who buy details of their movements including flight numbers over the internet and often book themselves into the same hotels or turn up at gyms.
Last December, three fans caused an hour-long delay in Hong Kong by following boy band Wanna One onto their flight, forcing every passenger to go through a second security check.
One K-pop manager told the South China Morning Post he had fans breaking into his building multiple times, saying that one group spread urine and faeces over his doorstep to "mark their territory".
The bands go out of their way to keep fans happy upsetting them at their peril.
Fans of Super Junior demanded that band member Sungmin be ousted after he wed in secret, without telling them.
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Jay Park was forced out of 2PM at the peak of their prominence after remarks such as I hate Koreans, allegedly made on a MySpace page years earlier, came to light.
And in 2006, Yunho, a member of boy band TVXQ, was rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped after the fan of a rival group was accused of serving him a drink laced with glue.
But the popularity of bands like them has helped to fuel the dark underside of the multi-billion pound business.
Excerpt from:
Inside the dark world of K-Pop bands as singer Sulli found dead four years after online abuse forced her to - The Sun
