Three members of Fifty Fifty dismissed from agency Attrakt

Girl group Fifty Fifty [ATTRAKT]

Three members of K-pop quartet Fifty Fifty have been dismissed from their agency Attrakt, putting a virtual halt to a girl group that debuted, hit the top of the charts and sunk to the bottom of the public sentiment all in less than a year.

Attrakt ended its contracts with members Aran, Sio and Saena on Oct. 19 "after seeing no change or reflection of their actions regarding their severe breach of contracts," the agency said Monday. It added it may still take further measures against the members.

Keena will be the only member to stay, because she dropped her suit against Attrakt last Monday and returned to the agency.

She expressed her regret and apologized to Oscar Chun, the CEO of Attrakt, and gave him a 3-page handwritten letter with a flower after her interview with a media outlet last Friday, Chun said in an interview with Xsports.

She apologized for her action regarding the months-long legal battle and thanked the agency for accepting her back to the company, the report said.

Ahn Sung-il, the CEO of Fifty Fifty's production company The Givers, was blamed as the cause of all the kerfuffle by Keena in a phone call she disclosed to the public between the singer's father and Ahn.

In the recording, Ahn had reassured the members that an injunction will "never not be approved" by the court and persuaded the members to break free from Attrakt in order to join Warner Music Korea, the girl group's new agency, which had been accused of trying to poach the girl group out of the original agency to join the company.

The phone call, which was made on July 16, is proof that Ahn had tried to coerce Fifty Fifty without informing Attrakt's CEO Chun, the agency said in a press release.

Ahn had been trying to come between the two parties, acting as the whistle-blower, saying that Chun was planning to abandon the group after their first album release, Keena added in the interview on Friday with the local media.

Fifty Fifty has been one of the hottest girl groups of 2023, with its song "Cupid" making the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart within just months of its debut last November. It has been in a legal battle for an injunction to end their contract with the agency since last June.

A Seoul court on Aug. 28 dismissed the members' injunction request, siding with Attrakt. The four members appealed, but Keena dropped her case last week.

Earlier this year, Attrakt sued The Givers and its executives, including Ahn, for allegedly violating the production contract they had signed with Attrakt.

Chun has been alleging The Givers' Ahn did not provide data relevant to Fifty Fifty's earnings, to diminish the agency's control over the group and encourage members to sign with another agency without his knowing.

Ahn and Baek Jin-sil, another executive from The Givers under suspicion of breach of contract, are scheduled to go in for police investigation starting Tuesday.

To find out more about Fifty Fifty, visit Celeb Confirmed!

BY KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]